# Buying business as Going Concern



## mickeyg (13 Feb 2008)

If a business is being sold as a going concern and the incoming owners want to bring in their own management team to replace those being inherited from the old regime, what rights do the "old" management team have in this situation? Can they be just summarily dismissed?


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## Purple (13 Feb 2008)

I would have thought that under TUPE the new owners would have to offer big fat handshakes to the people they wanted to get rid of.


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## mathepac (13 Feb 2008)

Purple said:


> ...TUPE...


What's that?


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## Brendan Burgess (13 Feb 2008)

I Googled TUPE


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## MOB (15 Feb 2008)

A common misconception is that TUPE somehow means you can't be dismissed when a business changes hands.   A better way of thinking about TUPE is that your existing rights cannot be adversely affected.  

It is always the case - whether a business changes hands or not -that any employee (including management) can be dismissed by reason of redundancy.   Selection for dismissal by reason of redundancy must be fair;  one commonly accepted selection standard which passes the standard of fairness is 'last in first out' but it is important to remember that this is by no means the only fair way to select people for redundancy.   

So - worst case scenario: existing management team can be dismissed by reason of redundancy with statutory redundancy only.   

In this scenario, it would have to be demonstrated that this is a fair process.  For example, the new owner could not easily get away with dismissing existing management and then simply hiring new people off the street; but if they have their own management team ready to move in, it might well be reasonable to say 'as part of the re-organisation, we are putting in place our own experienced managers, any existing managers who can not be re-deployed will be redundant'


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## mathepac (15 Feb 2008)

Brendan said:


> I Googled TUPE


Thanks.


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## Complainer (18 Feb 2008)

MOB said:


> Selection for dismissal by reason of redundancy must be fair;  one commonly accepted selection standard which passes the standard of fairness is 'last in first out' but it is important to remember that this is by no means the only fair way to select people for redundancy.
> 
> So - worst case scenario: existing management team can be dismissed by reason of redundancy with statutory redundancy only.
> 
> In this scenario, it would have to be demonstrated that this is a fair process.  For example, the new owner could not easily get away with dismissing existing management and then simply hiring new people off the street; but if they have their own management team ready to move in, it might well be reasonable to say 'as part of the re-organisation, we are putting in place our own experienced managers, any existing managers who can not be re-deployed will be redundant'




I thought that (in theory at least) it was positions which were made redundant, not people. So they couldn't make the existing management team redundant, and then bring in new people into the same positions?


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## Purple (19 Feb 2008)

Complainer said:


> I thought that (in theory at least) it was positions which were made redundant, not people. So they couldn't make the existing management team redundant, and then bring in new people into the same positions?


If the new people bring new skills and the job requirements of the position have changed then they probably could.


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