The PDA is “supporting a group employment tribunal claim involving around 80” former Sainsbury’s pharmacists who were made redundant by Lloydspharmacy, the union yesterday (December 1) announced.
In April, the body said that pharmacists involved in the legal dispute with Lloydspharmacy over their entitlement to enhanced redundancy benefits would have their case heard from March 17 2025.
Now, the PDA has revealed that “around 80” pharmacists will be involved in the four-day long “open” tribunal hearing as it steams ahead with preparations.
Read more: March 2025 hearing set for former Lloydspharmacy staff redundancy row
“A draft bundle of documents for the hearing has now been prepared and over the course of the next couple of weeks the bundle will be agreed with the solicitors acting on behalf of the liquidators, at which stage the bundle will be finalised,” it said.
It added that PDA director of defence services Mark Pitt “will give evidence at the hearing as he represented the pharmacists at both the grievance and appeal meetings” and that the union expects to call another two witnesses.
“Further information about the hearing will be provided in the new year,” it said.
“Bring some closure”
The PDA said that “even if the claim is successful, the prospects of recovering anything more than a token amount of compensation is highly unlikely due to the business being in liquidation and the claimants being low down on the list of creditors”.
In November, C+D exclusively revealed that Lloydspharmacy had confirmed it had exited the high street for good and reported in January that the multiple had gone into liquidation - with almost £300 million owed to creditors.
Read more: ‘No realistic prospect’ of proper payout in Lloydspharmacy redundancy row
Despite this, the PDA added that it has “decided to continue to fund the litigation so that company representatives can be held to account in the tribunal”.
It stressed “the strength of feeling among pharmacists impacted by the loss of their enhanced redundancy benefits”, adding that the PDA hopes “this helps to bring some closure to claimants”.
Tribunal tribulations
In February, the PDA revealed that the now-defunct multiple’s liquidators confirmed that Lloydspharmacy did not have business indemnity insurance in place that would have covered any successful compensation claims.
It estimated at the time that any successful tribunal award would “only be able to recover in the region of two pence for every £10 awarded”.
In July, C+D reported that “almost 100” former Lloydspharmacy workers in Sainsbury’s stores were headed to court in an effort to access enhanced redundancy benefits.
Read more: UPDATED: PDA begins legal process in ex-Lloydspharmacy staff employment row
The action came after internal recourse for the workers had been exhausted, with the company ruling that the workers “do not have a contractual right” to enhanced redundancy payments and confirmed that it would instead offer only statutory benefits.
The workers were transferred from Sainsbury’s to Lloydspharmacy in 2016 under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) regulations (TUPE).
But when they were made redundant by Lloydspharmacy after the multiple elected to shut all of its 237 branches in Sainsbury’s stores, they only received statutory redundancy benefits - “the bare minimum…in law” - rather than the enhanced redundancy benefits that they were entitled to as Sainsbury’s employees, according to the PDA.
