EAT Rules On Trigger For Collective Redundancy Consultation

The EAT has ruled that first instance tribunals have been wrong to interpret a judgment of the European Court of Justice on EU law as impacting the trigger for the duty to inform and consult under UK law where an employer proposes small batches of redundancies. In the EAT's view, when applying the threshold of a proposal to make 20 or more redundancies in a 90 day period, the test is how many dismissals the employer is proposing at the material time for the future. The tribunal had therefore erred in interpreting the ECJ decision as meaning that an employer proposing redundancies "must look backwards and forwards for 90 days to determine whether there are sufficient redundancies to trigger the collective consultation obligations", so that an "an employer who has proposed fewer than 20 redundancies and then subsequently proposes further redundancies within 90 days (making the total 20 or more), should as far as possible consult collectively" with both groups. (Micro