The case refers to a hearing in the Royal Court arising from a judgement of the Jersey Employment Tribunal.
Whilst the JEP are reporting this as a 'victory' for the employee who made a spurious complaint against his employer, it is important to note that actually this was a victory for the employer. The 'damages' awarded were reduced from over £21,000 to under £19,000. This may be because some had been paid, or it may be as a result of a partially successful appeal.
The judgement of the JET is here, the judgement from the Royal Court is not yet available.
Clearly part of the JET complaint was justified, but the larger part, the 'constructive dismissal' was not.
The employee quite blatantly gained alternative employment and resigned from his position then made suspect allegations that he had been unfairly constructively dismissed in order to rob his former employer of a JACS lottery payout.
Now I do know the director of the company, but I have not discussed the matter with him. All I can state is the lawful options which are available.
The first option is to consider an appeal, by constantly appealing the matter to higher and higher Courts this could be tied up in litigation for the next ten years.
The other option is to quite simply sell all the shares in the company for £1 to a retired aunt, and send the company into liquidation. This will preclude her from being a director again in the future but who cares.
All the stock can be sold immediately prior to the transfer of the shares to myself in person for the same £1 that has just been received from the aunt and set up trading again the next day.
I would be surprised if this is not what happens to the Axle group, the MD will no doubt be trading again with all the stock and none of the staff.
So where does that leave our erstwhile employee?
That employee is now unemployable should he leave his new position, and if what goes around, comes around, the employment he found after working at Beau Monde was with the Axle group and he is now without employment. He may also not receive a penny of the award.
Think twice before placing your trust in government.
So the question remains why did he go through with it all in the first place? The answer remains as always the same; because the government do not care about the great unwashed, they do not care about you. You are a sausage in a sausage factory and you will be processed and spat out. At best they will not have to pay income support for you for a few months.
That clearly justifies an expense of tens of thousands of taxpayers money to hold these show trials.
The circumvention you propose: sell all the shares for £1, to an Aunt and then acquire the stock at an effective undervalue is unlikely to work in practice: the overall transaction would be recognized as a transaction at an undervalue to a connected person and can be avoided upon the company being declared en desastre.
ReplyDeleteA transaction of the nature may also render the perpetrators liable for fraud against their creditors. In practice, the directors will need to act on a "arms length" basis; ie. attempting to take an objective view by, for example, sale of the stock at an effective liquidation value (maybe 10 to 20 percent of the actual value); coupled with an advertisement for expressions of interest. The exercise will add a few £'s to the overall cost but would be worthwhile nonetheless. This will stop every liquidator in his tracks in trying to recover any shortfall: as the exercise of the powers under the relevant statutes is for the liquidator to fund himself - he cannot, for example, sell the right to prosecute to another - a liquidator will not fund litigation that has only moderate prospects of success.
Collections Group: by passing control of the companies to liquidators, the former director ought to be able to deal on an arms length basis. This is one of the reasons that liquidators are appointed, so that they can contract for sale of assets.