Increasing number of former employees seeking legal action against Complete Utilities

A rising amount of former employees from the collapsed Gloucestershire firm Complete Utilities are seeking legal action against it.

Law firm Simpson Millar has confirmed it is continuing to be contacted by some of the 300 former employees who lost their jobs, when the Maisemore-based business ceased trading.

Staff were told by email not to turn up for work on Monday 1 November 2021, and news soon spread of the scale of the crisis at the firm, which was the primary contractor for Gigaclear’s project to install superfast broadband across Gloucestershire.

Anita North, an employment law expert at Simpson Millar, said the impact on staff had been devastating: ‘We are now in touch with a number of individuals who have been affected as a result and are in the early stages of investigating whether Complete Utilities did indeed fail in its duty to consult over the redundancies.’

At least 20 staff are now understood to have contacted the Bristol law firm.

‘Regardless of whether a company is struggling financially, they still have a duty under current employment law legislation to carry out a proper consultation with staff at risk of redundancies. Where that does not happen, employees can bring a claim for a protective award,’ said North.

David Taylor, 43, who worked for Complete Utilities for seven years before being laid off, said: ‘The has come as a real blow. We were supposed to be paid today for last week’s work, but we’ve received nothing.

‘I want someone to be held to account over the way this whole process has been managed. It’s just appalling.’

Simpson Millar said it had launched an ‘eligibility checker’ to allow people to see if they were eligible to make a claim.

The Bristol-based law firm said if an employment tribunal found in the favour of the employees, each staff member could expect up to £4,352 via the Government Insolvency Service.

Read more: Hundreds of jobs could be lost after Complete Utilities 'ceases trading'

By Andrew Merrell

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