| Restrictions | OK |
|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | Employment Relations Authority - Auckland |
| Reference No | AA 57A/05 |
| Hearing date | 23 Jun 2005 |
| Determination date | 21 September 2005 |
| Member | D King |
| Representation | P Skelton ; J Hannan |
| Location | Auckland |
| Parties | Bruhns v Deloitte Consulting NZ LLC |
| Summary | BREACH OF CONTRACT - Applicant alleged entitled to redundancy compensation under employment agreement - Applicant worked on project - Alleged promised bonus of percentage of sale proceeds when project sold to particular company - However sale could not go ahead and respondent contemplated another buyer - Parties' dispute about whether incentive bonus still applied resulted in settlement - Respondent alleged applicant precluded by settlement from pursuing redundancy compensation claim - Dispute" in settlement claim was matter of sale proceeds and redundancy not related to that - Respondent knew redundancy was issue for applicant - No misleading behaviour that estopped applicant from raising redundancy compensation claim - Applicant went from employment with respondent to employment with buyer - Whether this was redundancy - Employment agreement defined redundancy as condition in which position surplus to respondent's business requirements - Applicant forced by sale of project into situation where employment with respondent would finish - Did not agree to terminate employment - Redundancy - Employment agreement provided no redundancy compensation payable in event of restructure where employment terminated and employee offered employment by any party to restructure - Whether divestment of assets fell within concept of "restructure" - Common usage of "restructure" was to alter structure by rearrangement and divestment created a change to structure - Payment of redundancy compensation precluded by redundancy clause" |
| Result | Application dismissed ; Costs reserved |
| Cases Cited | GN Hale & Son Ltd v Wellington etc Caretakers etc IUOW [1991] 1 NZLR 151;NZ Electrical etc IUOW v GPT Business Systems Ltd [1990] 2 NZILR 230;Rasch v Wellington City Council [1994] 1 ERNZ 367;Snow v Container Terminals Ltd [2000] 1 ERNZ 454;Wellington City Council v Rasch [1995] 2 ERNZ 91;Wellington etc Clerical etc IUOW v Greenwich [1983] ACJ 965 |
| Number of Pages | 4 |
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