I was recently made redundant in Nov 2007 from my company after working there for nearly 7 years. I did receive a redundancy payout which was the statutory minimum amount plus notice etc.

One of my main concerns was my 2007 Bonus which the company refused to pay stating the Qualifying rules were that “an employee must be employed and not in a notice period on 31st Jan 2008.” The Bonus amounted to approximately 30% of salary and in this particular year the company was to show a really good bonus after selling off parts of the business.

The company insisted it was simply tough luck and 100% purposely made me redundant after completing almost 11 months of the Bonus year.

On further inspection of my bonus letter which was emailed to the whole company and every employee, I noticed that the letter stated “employees must be employed and not in a notice period on 31st Jan 2007” this was different to what was quoted to me at my redundancy meeting.

The letter was sent by HR to all employees and was written by the CEO of the company. I have raised a statutory grievance against the company and they turned down my request stating they made an error in the letter. No mention of an error had been mention throughout the year or communicated to any staff and its only after I raised the issue they have mentioned this. Also, I feel in the position of CEO of a European company a letter sent about bonus’s affecting profitability is a legal and binding letter especially when written by the most senior person in the company.

Please advise, I am attending an appeal meeting early next week and I am committed to taking this further.

Thanks,

eric mody