Thousands of ex-Comet staff may be entitled to up to £25m compensation for not being collectively consulted before being made redundant by the company.
A Leeds employment tribunal found that 275 of the employees were entitled to full compensation. The tribunal has yet to decide how many more of a total of 6,889 ex-employees are due a payout. Under employment law, the compensation will not be provided by Comet's owners. Instead, the eventual compensation bill will be footed by the taxpayer. Leeds-based law firm, The Needle Partnership, which represented the 275 employees, said that Comet had suffered a "corporate raid by private equity investors". "Comet's demise is one of the biggest High Street casualties of recent years," said Needle Partnership employment partner Victoria Robertson. "A corporate raid by private equity investors resulted in a 75-year-old British company being destroyed and nearly 7,000 jobs being lost." The employees will be entitled to up to 90 days' pay in compensation for staff dismissed on or after 17 November 2012.....Read more here