Significant Court of Appeal Decision on Redundancy this week

In Grace Team Accounting v Brake the Court of Appeal was asked to consider issues of redundancy for the first time in many years. The Court of Appeal held that Section 103(A) has significantly changed the law on redundancy, and what was required now was strict adherence to the requirements for disclosure of information and consultation that now apply in redundancy situations.

For employers this means that there is a very high level of disclosure and consultation required to justify a dismissal on the grounds of redundancy. There must still be, of course, a genuine reason for the redundancies. The practical result may well be that employers’ decisions in relation to redundancy dismissals will be the subject of even grater scrutiny by the Employment Relations Authority and the Employment Court in the future.