Welcome back.

I hope you managed to switch off over the break. While most of the profession was winding down, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) was busy clearing its desk. A flurry of judgments released just before Christmas provides some sobering reading for the year ahead, particularly if your 2026 plans involve restructuring.

The decisions you might have missed while tackling the turkey.

1. Redundancy: No Consultation, Two Weeks' Pay

Gormley v Phoenix Business Solutions (UK) Ltd [2025] EAT 198 (22 Dec 2025)

If you are planning workforce changes in Q1, Gormley shows both halves of the redundancy bargain.

A legal director was dismissed in a restructure. The employer conceded that it had failed to consult properly, to consider alternative roles and to offer an appeal [2]. The tribunal dismissed the unfair dismissal claim and yet awarded compensation. The parties agreed that could not stand: Lady Poole substituted a finding of unfair dismissal, the only conclusion open on the tribunal's own findings [9].

The remedy is the part to read. The tribunal had found that a fair consultation would have taken two weeks and that the dismissal would then have followed anyway. The EAT accepted that consultation at a formative stage might affect whether a person is made redundant at all, but what would have happened in this case was a question of fact for the tribunal. The two-week award stood [18]-[19].

The Takeaway: A redundancy dismissal without consultation will usually be unfair. What it costs depends on what consultation would have changed, so keep the evidence of the alternatives you considered.

2. Can a State be an Employer?

Mrs A Muda v Malaysia [2025] EAT 193 (23 Dec 2025)

The claimant worked at the Malaysian High Commission in London and brought a claim for unpaid wages. The tribunal held that Malaysia was immune under section 4(2)(a) of the State Immunity Act 1978 because she was a Malaysian citizen, but rejected the state's two other grounds of immunity.

On Malaysia's cross-appeal Heather Williams J upheld the tribunal on those two grounds: the claimant's employment was not an exercise of sovereign authority, and her claim did not engage it [76]. Her own appeal on the nationality bar is stayed pending the Government's response to the declaration of incompatibility made in Spain v Lorenzo [2025] EWCA Civ 59 [78].

The Takeaway: A niche point. For mission staff whose work is not close to the governmental functions of the mission, the sovereign authority route to immunity is narrow. The nationality bar is the live question: it is not yet answered.

3. The 2026 Outlook

We enter 2026 with the Employment Rights Act looming. Implementation dates are still fluid, but the direction of travel is clear: Day 1 rights for unfair dismissal are coming.

Gormley is a reminder that a failure of process makes the dismissal unfair even where the outcome would have been the same. In a world where probation periods effectively vanish as a "free pass," your capability and conduct procedures must be sound from the start.

Corrected, October 2026: the accounts of Gormley and Muda in the original version of this note did not match the judgments and have been rewritten from them.

Need a steer?

If you are looking at the year ahead and seeing more risk than opportunity, let's talk. Whether it's tightening up your redundancy consultation scripts or reviewing your contracts for the new Act, I can help you navigate the changes.