Redundancy in 2020

On Friday 7 August, Westminster & Holborn Law Society hosted a virtual employment law event focusing on the unfortunately very current topic of redundancy. We heard from an excellent panel consisting of Maurice O’Carroll and Alex Adamou, of 33 Bedford Row’s employment law team and Tom McLaughlin of specialist employment law firm BDBF. The event provided our employment lawyers with an update on redundancy generally and provided additional considerations for the wave of redundancy procedures being initiated as a result of the economic downturn, precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlights of the talks given by our expert panel included:

■ an overview of the principles of redundancy;

■ the latest relevant cases such as Gwynedd Council v Barratt UKEAT;

■ the recent advice provided by ACAS on redundancy on 5 August;

■ alternative offers of employment, including the duty on employers to see if there is suitable alternative employment and what happens if an employee does not accept an offer;

■ considerations for enhanced redundancy payments;

■ the timeline of essential steps legally required during a redundancy procedure; and

■ the documents needed during a redundancy exercise.

The formal presentation was followed by an engaging Q&A session. We are missing our in-person events but are so grateful to our speakers for giving us their time and energy to provide us with the next best thing in order to keep our knowledge up to date.

If there are any events you would like to see, or if you are interested in joining our committee, please do get in touch with me. You can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter @NicolaRubbert. ■

Nicola Rubbert

Chair, Education & Training Committee

Westminster & Holborn Law Society