LCR22367

1.Payment of Outstanding Redundancy Claim

BACKGROUND:

2.On the 29 September 2020 the Worker referred the issue to the Labour Court, in accordance with Section 20(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969. A Labour Court hearing took place in a virtual court room on the 16 February 2021.

The Worker agreed to be bound by the Court’s Recommendation.

RECOMMENDATION:

This matter comes before the Court as a referral by the Claimant under Section 20(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969. In accordance with the terms of that section of the Act of 1969 the Claimant has agreed to accept the Recommendation of the Court.

The Court has given very careful consideration to the written and oral submissions of the parties.

The Court has noted the very difficult experience of the Claimant throughout the period and in particular is aware of the grievous price paid by her arising from the collapse, through no fault of the Claimant’s, of her employer’s business and her ultimate redundancy as a consequence, on terms which did not, in the view of the Court, respect her many years of service to Irish Nationwide Building Society and later IBRC.

It is common case that the Claimant was employed by Irish Nationwide Building Society from July 1999 until that institution became part of IBRC in July 2011. Her employment continued in IBRC until February 2013 when that entity was liquidated as a result of an Act of the Oireachtas. At that point in time the Claimant’s employment, along with the employment of over 800 colleagues, was terminated. The Claimant was made redundant and received payment in respect of all of her statutory entitlements arising from that redundancy.

The Special Liquidators appointed as a result of the liquidation made arrangements with approximately 400 of the former employees of IBRC whose employment had terminated, to engage in a new contract of employment with an entity which had been created by the 2013 Act and entitled ‘IBRC in Special Liquidation’, in order to assist with the wind down of IBRC and the processing of the loan book.

The Claimant agreed to take up that new contract of employment.

The Claimant’s employment with IBRC in Special Liquidation terminated on 31^stMay 2015. At that time she received payment upon termination arising from arrangements which had resulted from a mediation process involving the Special Liquidators and the Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA). A condition of payment of the terms arising from the mediation process was that the Claimant would sign a Deed of Release undertaking that she would not seek enhanced redundancy payments arising from the termination of her employment. That undertaking was expressed, in relevant part, in the following terms:

• The employee agrees to waive any and all claims for redundancy over and above statutory terms that she may have against the Special Liquidators……….. For the avoidance of doubt, any such claims …….relates to and includes the Employee’s employment with the Group both prior to and following the making of the Special Liquidation Order……

• ‘had an opportunity to obtain independent legal advice with regard to his/herlegal rights and the consequences and effects of this Deed of Release and that he/she has entered into this Deed of Release understanding the full implications of same and has done so of his/her own free will without duress or coercion of any sort’

The Claimant contends that she should receive an enhanced redundancy payment over and above the value of the redundancy payment she received in 2013 upon the termination of her employment with IBRC. The claim is based on the Claimant’s assessment that IBRC in Special Liquidation has funds available to it to make a payment to her. She contends that she should receive such money on the basis of the operation of company law and in preference to certain other creditors of the company in special liquidation.

The background to the claim includes the operation of an enhanced voluntary redundancy scheme in IBRC from 2011 until the liquidation of the company with the termination of the employment of all employees on statutory terms in February 2013.

The employer rejects the claim and contends in any event that any Recommendation of the Court in the matter can have no effect arising from the legal framework which applies to liquidations.

It is not for this Court while exercising its jurisdiction under the Industrial Relations Acts to purport to make findings or decisions as regards the correct interpretation or operation of Company Law. The Court must confine itself to consideration of the within trade dispute as a matter of industrial relations.

In that context, the Court is presented with a claim relating to redundancy terms paid in 2013 and is asked to consider that an enhanced payment over and above that which was made to over 800 staff of IBRC at that time should now be made to the Claimant.

The background to the dispute includes the agreement of the Claimant to sign a Deed of Release in 2015 which, on any reading, undertakes that no claim of the nature before the Court would be made by the Claimant upon the Special Liquidators.

The Court takes particular note of the fact that the Claimant has delayed almost six years in order to refer the matter to the Court and also takes note of the fact that the payment of statutory entitlement to the Claimant and her colleagues in 2013 reflected the undisputed operation of the law in respect of a company which was placed in liquidation at that time.

Having regard to the history and all of the circumstances surrounding the matter, including in particular the terms of the Deed of Release signed by the Claimant, the Court is unable to recommend concession of the claim.

The Court so recommends.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Kevin Foley
TH	______________________
22 February 2021	Chairman