Mr B McCrindle v The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Quantum win landmark legal victory against the Redundancy Payment Office (“the RPO”)

In what is understood to be a legal first, Quantum Claims Employment Department has successfully challenged the practice of the RPO to deduct tax & NI from unfair dismissal compensation.

The law provides that where an employee’s employer has become insolvent certain payments can be claimed from the RPO. This includes the right to claim a basic award granted by an employment tribunal who finds that an employee has been unfairly dismissed.

In this case, an employment tribunal found that the employee had been unfairly dismissed and ordered the employer to pay compensation which included a basic award of £4,785. When the employer became insolvent, the employee applied to the RPO for his basic award. The RPO paid the basic award but deducted over £1,000 for tax & national insurance. Quantum challenged that decision and a Glasgow employment tribunal has now ruled that the RPO acted unlawfully and has ordered them to repay the deducted sum to the employee.

Margaret Gribbon Employment Solicitor for Quantum Claims in Glasgow said, “There was an extremely important point of principle at stake in this case. We strongly believed that the RPO had no legal right to deduct these sums from our client’s compensation and are delighted that the employment tribunal agreed. We now expect the RPO to cease this practice and to refund any employee who has had sums unlawfully deducted from basic award payments”