Made redundant without consultation

jayu619

Good evening,
i have a situation that I am hoping to have some help with. Will keep it as concise as possible:

About 85 of us work for a large US retailer who went into bankruptcy during April 2020, filing for chapter 11 in the US. The hearing was scheduled for August 25th 2020.

We had anticipated that after the initial 3 months of furlough scheme, ending in June, we would re-open. Come July, we were told we had no updates for 4 weeks. Come August, no updates for a further 4 weeks. However, soon after the bankruptcy hearing on the 25th August, it came to light that my employer/parent company came out of bankruptcy by restructuring and with that, they decided to liquidate the UK business.

This is where the problem we are having as former employees:

None of us had a consultation as we are entitled to by law, of 30 days. We were told on a group zoom call on the 10 September 2020 that as of 9th September, we were made redundant, essentially we were told a day after being made redundant!! All we were told by the liquidators was to claim from the RPS. No other forms of payment offered from our parent company.

I also believe the parent company did not file HR1 form, which should have been 30 days notice prior to any consultation with employees. This may have occurred (not sure how to check if HR1 was filed?) as the bankruptcy hearing was on the 25th August and we were made redundant on the 9th September. I know we as employees don't have any recourse to this point as it's a criminal issue, if no HR1 claim was filed.

What recourse do we have for compensation in the civil route? As I am thinking, essentially we would be going after our US parent company as opposed to the UK arms as it's liquidated - although, companies house still has the UK business as being active.

If we have certainty we can win our case, is it better to go individually or bring a group action?

Any help or advice on the matter would be appreciated.

Thanks

Xbigman

You are flogging a dead horse. If liquidators are brought in and every employee is made redundant to the point that you are told to claim from the government safety net then that's it, you're redundant. Whether or not you are entitled to a consultation is a moot point when there is no money (in the UK) to pay you whilst the consultation takes place or to pay compensation if it doesn't. 
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protects companies from this kind of litigation in the US. Any restructure has to be signed off by the US courts in order to ensure the remaining company structure is viable, which includes blocking civil cases by former employee's but not criminal cases.
Make a claim to the government RPS ASAP and move on.


Darren

penners324

the whole consultation period thing goes out the window when a company goes bust. You'll only get the legal minimum from the government. Also any legal action against a US company will be pointless. And there's now no company in the UK to start legal action against.