Redundency Help

Mungtiop

Hi

First time poster after a little advice.

I worked for a company called morgan computers, a small store in Manchester with 4 employees part of a larger company with 4 stores including a head office in London. On the 4th November 2009 a man and a woman turned up at the store with no prior notice and explained that the company was being made insolvent and we were all out of jobs. We were given a form to fill (Rp1) as the company said they had no money to pay redundency, these forms we were told to fill in and return to there offices a.s.a.p. Around the middle of December i rang the company Taylor Aitken (the administration firm) and enquired when the money would be coming through, i was told that should the company actually go insolvent it would be around May time, when i asked what she meant by "if", she said they could not now say whether the company was going insolvent and they may be saving it. It was my understanding that May would bring it to past the 6 months cut of point for claiming with an Rp1 form so me and my three colleagues to it to the employment tribunal. We then received a letter saying that the respondent was not contesting the claims and would not be attending any hearings, but the judge has still scheduled a case management hearing for April. As of today neither the company nor the Director is on the insolvency website, all they have done is changed the name of the company to XSONLY, got rid of all the stores and staff and made the company mail order only.

My question is this.

1.Why would a judge call for a case management hearing and not just issue a default judgement when the respondents are not contesting the claim?

2.If the judge does agree it was unfair dismissal and the company still say they can't pay, how long would it take to get the money from the goverment. (Im owed about £5000).

Kind regards.

"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it"