Workers who discovered last week that their jobs had been lost when Quinn Infrastructure Services went into administration have now engaged lawyers.
Quinn Infrastructure Services, formerly MJ Quinn Integrated Services, ceased trading on 25th November, with the company reportedly employing around 200 people at the time of the collapse.
Law firm Simpson Millar has since been contacted by several former workers based out of Quinn’s London office who claim they were not consulted over the job losses. The lawyers are looking to secure a protective award for those affected.
Employment lawyer Anita North said: “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.”
A protective award is a payment awarded by an employment tribunal in cases where an employer fails to follow the correct procedure when making 20 or more redundancies and, where an employment tribunal finds in the favour of the employees, they will be able to access the funds via the government’s Insolvency Service.
In the 18 months to 30th November 2018, private equity-owned MJ Quinn Integrated Services turned over £109.1m and made a pre-tax profit of £24.6m. It then sold its telecommunications business and the MJ Quinn trading brand to Constructel, a subsidiary of Portugal’s Grupo Visabeira. With this deal Palatine Private Equity exited the business. In the year to 29th November 2019, the renamed Quinn Infrastructure Services turned over £10.7m and made a pre-tax loss of £5.2m.
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