Former Superbreak staff in York get £150k after tribunal claim

Employment rights solicitor Chris Riley, who is acting for 71 out of 150 York ex-employees at the offices in Eboracum Way, said they would get a total payout of about £150,000.

He said the company had failed to inform and consult staff before making them redundant last summer, in breach of legislation.

“They were simply asked to attend a meeting where they were informed that they were being made redundant with immediate effect,” said Mr Riley, of York solicitors Pattinson & Brewer.

He said that under UK legislation, where an employer proposed to make large scale redundancies of 20 or more employees within a period of 90 days or less, it must consult on its proposal with representatives of the affected employees and the consultation should begin in good time.

“In Superbreak’s case, this clearly did not happen,” he said. “Around 150 employees who were based at the company’s head office in York were made redundant, yet nobody was elected nor did any consultation take place.”

He said that having issued a claim in December, the claimants had been successful following an application for default judgment as the claim went unopposed by the company’s administrators.

He said each claimant had been awarded 90 days’ pay by the tribunal but this would be capped at 56 days’ pay by the Redundancy Payments Office (RPO) and his firm was in the process of seeking these payments from the RPO.

“This is a great result for those individuals who unexpectedly lost their jobs shortly before Christmas,” he said. “Whilst this result won’t change what happened, it will go some way to compensate those who were kept in the dark in the build up to Superbreak’s demise.”

One ex-employee, Millie Douce, said: “I’m delighted with the result, and look forward to spending the money on a holiday!”

Another, Jamie Lyon, said the result was some consolation for the stress and uncertainty suffered when staff were let down by the company.