Possible redundancy on the cards

missingmum

I'm after a little advice please.

I've worked for the same man for many years. In 2004 he started his own company which got into difficulty and went bust in 2009. In the meantime, in 2007 he started a second business. When things started to get tough with the first business he transferred myself and another employee to the new business and the original was liquidated a few months later.

The "new" company is now trading insolvently and I expect things to spiral beyond help in the next couple of weeks. We have not been given any redundancy notice, just told that things are tough and we need to knuckle down etc etc.

I should point out at this stage, as well as being an employee of the new business, I am also a minority shareholder, he gave me the shares, in his words to stop me looking elsewhere for employment!

Anyway my query is this. When the inevitable redundancy situation arrives, what am I and other staff members (same length of service but no shares) entitled too?

Would stat. redundancy be calculated from 2004 when we started for the original company, or 2009 when he transferred us to the new company?

I am aware of tupe but as this all happened several years ago I'm not sure if it applies?

Thank you

TBagpuss

TUPE rules were last updated in 2006, which pre-dates your transfer to the current company, so the current rules are the same a the ones whch applied when you transferred.

Assuming that you were continuing to do the same job on the same terms, I think TUPE will apply so if you are curent ly made redundant your service would be calcualted from 2004

sangie595

missingmum wrote: »

I'm after a little advice please.

I've worked for the same man for many years. In 2004 he started his own company which got into difficulty and went bust in 2009. In the meantime, in 2007 he started a second business. When things started to get tough with the first business he transferred myself and another employee to the new business and the original was liquidated a few months later.

The "new" company is now trading insolvently and I expect things to spiral beyond help in the next couple of weeks. We have not been given any redundancy notice, just told that things are tough and we need to knuckle down etc etc.

I should point out at this stage, as well as being an employee of the new business, I am also a minority shareholder, he gave me the shares, in his words to stop me looking elsewhere for employment!

Anyway my query is this. When the inevitable redundancy situation arrives, what am I and other staff members (same length of service but no shares) entitled too?

Would stat. redundancy be calculated from 2004 when we started for the original company, or 2009 when he transferred us to the new company?

I am aware of tupe but as this all happened several years ago I'm not sure if it applies?

Thank you

Theoretically TUPE does apply that far back. But that is not the issue, as it isn't clear whether it applies to you. What you describe as a transfer is being swapped from one company to another, and a TUPE transfer has a specific meaning in law about the transfer of services and associated staff from one company to another. Unless this happened, and happened formally as a TUPE then it probably doesn't apply to you. I am afraid some dubious and shifty processes involving insolvent companies doesn't qualify. Which is what it sounds like he did. The law would require that he transferred some service to the new company from the old one in a legal manner. The reality is that most small businesses in the circumstance you describe here have simply run away from their debt and set up shop without any real legal process somewhere else. In which case you would have no continuity of service and you would be treated as having started at the new company as a new employee.

I suspect that if you wanted to argue otherwise you will probably have to take legal advice. The detail matters.