Ayrshire firm dodged big tribunal pay-out

Nov 14 2008

A COMPANY which changed hands to avoid an employment tribunal award could be forced to stump up after all.

The move comes after the owner of the welding business flogged the order book and assets to another company owned by members of his family.

Welders Stanley Oliver and George Irvine won a constructive and unfair dismissal claim against G&K Valve Services Ltd in January 2006.

They quit when their boss devised fake safety certificates for them so they could work in confined spaces at a sewage treatment works.

But by the time the tribunal awarded them more than £38,000 compensation between them, company owner Tony Cowan had transferred or sold G&K to KLT Water Engineering Ltd of Dundonald.

Mr Oliver, of Troon, and Mr Irvine, of Irvine, claim that the second company is owned by members of Mr Cowan’s family, and that he maintained direction and control.

A Glasgow tribunal heard that G&K was an apparently profitable company, when it was transferred to KLT within two weeks of its formation.

Former clerical assistant Katharine Corbett said in a statement that Mr Cowan had expressed the view that if G&K did not exist any more then there could be no cases brought against it.

Mr Oliver and Mr Irvine took their case back to a tribunal in a bid to have the new company pay them compensation.

Employment judge Michael MacMillan ruled there was a link between the unfair constructive dismissal and the transfer some months later.

The tribunal said that, had they not been unfairly dismissed, they would have remained in employment and there was no reason to believe that employment would not have continued to the date of the transfer.

The tribunal said it was beyond doubt that Mr Cowan's actions were taken primarily to prevent being sued by Mr Oliver and Mr Irvine and possibly other members of the workforce.

The original tribunal had heard how Mr Oliver and Mr Irvine quit after refusing to lie for their bosses that training certificates were genuine.

The Health and Safety Executive had investigated and a report confirmed the situation had been “potentially fatal”.

They had been sent to a job at Daldowie Sewage Treatment Works with false training certificates. Mr Cowan then asked them to lie and say they had lied at their interview about training and faked their training certificates as he was in a “deep hole”.

They refused to lie about events and resigned.

The case was continued.