The case of USDAW and others v WW Realisation 1 Ltd (in Liquidation) involved the liquidation of the Woolworths retail chain. When Woolworths was put into administration in autumn 2008, the administrators hoped to find a buyer for the business so it could be sold as a "going concern". At the last moment, the administrators decided that a sale was not going to be possible and started a collective redundancy consultation process which lasted approximately 10 days before liquidation and was mainly conducted over the telephone.
The question for the Tribunal in this case was whether each store was a separate "establishment" for the purposes of the collective redundancy consultation laws. If they were separate establishments, this would mean that stores with less than 20 employees were under no obligation to conduct collective consultation, so their employees were not entitled to a protective award for failure to collectively consult.
Somewhat surprisingly (given past case law) the Tribunal held that each store was a separate "establishment" as each of the stores had its own organisational structure and management and the employees were assigned to an individual store, rather than to the whole of the Woolworths' retail organisation. Employees at stores with less than 20 employees were therefore not entitled to a protective award.
It is interesting to note that in spite of Woolworth's substantial failure to comply with its obligation to collectively consult in respect of the stores with 20 or more employees, the Tribunal reduced the protective award by 1/3rd to 60 days' pay per employee, given that a small amount of consultation at least had taken place.
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