Carillion: uncertain future for employees and contractors as shockwave spreads

On Monday, a winding up order was made against Carillion, the UK’s second biggest construction company, and the court appointed the Official Receiver as the liquidator. The collapse has left thousands of jobs hanging in the balance.

Since July 2017, the company had already carried out two rounds of compulsory redundancies.

Suppliers are being told that they should continue to work and provide services as normal, under their existing contracts, terms and conditions.

Goods and services supplied from 15 January 2018 and during the liquidation will be paid for. If suppliers have not been paid then they are being told to register as a creditor in the liquidation.

Any suppliers that relied heavily on Carillion for their revenue and are concerned about making redundancies in their own organisations will need to follow a fair process for redundancies or face a raft of claims. They will need to carefully consider how many redundancies and the appropriate pool of jobs from which those redundancies must come from.

If 20 or more redundancies are required (or an employer has already made redundancies recently and needs to make more) then they will need to consider collective consultation issues too.