Redmans helps client increase their settlement agreement compensation by £20,000

Summary

How Chris Hadrill, a specialist employment solicitor, represented a client in settlement agreement negotiations and secured the client an increase of £20,000 to their redundancy package, as well as other amendments to the settlement agreement.

Situation

Oscar (not his real name) worked as a manager at a large investment firm in London. Oscar’s employer decided in 2017 that they wished to move Oscar’s team to a location outside London and, further, to send some of Oscar’s team’s responsibilities to be undertaken in India. These changes took place without much consultation with Oscar and his team, and the employer then decided that Oscar’s team’s roles were potentially redundant. A redundancy process started and Oscar was told that he was at risk of redundancy – Oscar was unhappy with this and complained that his employer had not undertaken a fair redundancy process: he thought that he should have been consulted on the move of the team out of London and, potentially, offered a role in this other team before the redundancy process commenced. Oscar was left with the impression that, as a result of what had happened, the decision to make him redundant was therefore a ‘fait accomplit”.

After Oscar was told that he may be made redundant he made a complaint to his managaer that he believed his redundancy was unfair and got in touch with Redmans.

What we did

When Oscar contacted the employment team at Redmans she wanted to secure a substantial increase to the redundancy package that he had been offered in order to settle his potential claim for unfair dismissal. Chris Hadrill, a specialist employment solicitor at Redmans, handled Oscar’s matter.

Chris explained to Oscar that his employer’s actions in making him redundant without undertaking a fair consultation procedure meant that he potentially had a successful unfair dismissal claim against his employer. He informed Oscar that the best strategy in the circumstances would, rather to simply bring an Employment Tribunal claim against his employer, be to negotiate for more favourable settlement agreement terms.

Chris drafted a letter to Oscar’s employers setting out the law on redundancies in order to set out why Oscar felt his dismissal was unfair and why he should be offered a more favourable settlement agreement than his employer had previously put forward. Chris explained to the employer that Oscar wanted a substantial increase to the settlement sum that he was being offered, as well as a mutually-agreed reference and mutual confidentiality clauses.

The result

After a lengthy period of negotiation Oscar’s employer agreed to settle his claims and pay him a sum in respect of his notice, a mutually-agreed reference, mutual confidentiality clauses, and a £20,000 increase to the ex-gratia payment that he employer was prepared to make. Oscar’s employer also agreed to cover the entirety of his legal fees and to make an agreed announcement as to why Oscar had left the organisation.