Redundancy Question - Employees of UK PEO (Professional Employment Agency) firm for US Company

Paularooni

11 of us worked for a US company until 31st of Mar 2020. We were all let go due to COVID-19 as the investors pulled out. With 2hrs notice we were told we no longer work for them.

The US company originally intended to set up a UK entity & employ us via that but it never happened. In 2016 they decided to use a PEO (Professinal Employment Agency) payroll company instead. As of 31-Mar-2016 we were employed by the PEO company with signed contracts saying we were employed by them & since then they have paid us, our taxes to HMRC, our pensions etc... 

Note: the UK PEO company as the employer on our contracts, pay checks, HMRC payments & pension payments.

When COVID-19 hit & the investors pulled out the US company severed ties with the PEO company & we were told that we were no longer working for them via a phone call from the US company.

We emailed both the US company & UK PEO company to ask when we were getting paid our severance packages (1 to 3 months notice periods). Each party said contact the other & both refuse to pay it.

Our contracts, with the UK PEO company, also listed 1 weeks pay per yr of service. We also had stock options with the US company which now have an expiry date of 30-Jun-2020. This changed from 2026 recently.

We believe that the US company is up for sale at a reduced cost to get it off the investors books. 

We have gone through the ACAS Early Conciliation process but to no avail.

What's the best way forward?