Employees ‘summarily dismissed’ following construction firm’s collapse win legal battle

Fourteen members of staff who lost their jobs following the collapse of Newark-based offsite construction firm Caledonian Modular have been awarded 90 days’ pay following allegations the company failed to consult with them before making redundancies.

Some 200 jobs were saved at Caledonian after administrators from Alvarez & Marsal sold the firm to JRL Group at the beginning of April for just £6.25m.

However, it has emerged that a tranche of 23 employees – including the claimants – were “summarily dismissed by the administrators without forewarning” on 9 March.

Following a hearing at Nottingham on 24 October, Judge Peter Britton ruled in favour of the claimants. He said there was “no evidence” to contradict their claim and added that the respondent “does not dispute that there was no consultation.”

Moreover, Britton ruled that “no mitigating argument” had been made regarding the failure to consult.

The employees were represented by Nuala Toner of Nualaw Limited.

Caledonian racked up losses of almost £25m in the two years prior to its collapse, according to documents seen by TheBusinessDesk.com.

The firm’s troubles were exacerbated by a cyber-attack on February 24 which infected its servers and encrypted its data, reducing its ability to trade and leaving it facing a costly fix job.