McKeith v Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC; Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC v James [2016] NSWCA 36

Court of Appeal Supreme Court New South Wales Medium Neutral Citation: McKeith v Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC; Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC v James [2016] NSWCA 36 Hearing dates: 19, 20, 21 October 2015 Decision date: 09 March 2016 Before: Macfarlan JA at [1]; Tobias AJA at [25]; Emmett AJA at [307] Decision: 1 That within the periods identified below, the parties file and serve written submissions not exceeding five pages in length, together with draft orders to give effect to these reasons for judgment and to the appropriate awarding of costs both at first instance and on the appeal. 2 The appellants shall comply with this order within 14 days of the date of publication of this judgment; the respondents to reply within 14 days of receipt of the appellants' submissions and draft orders and the appellants to reply to the respondents within 7 days of the receipt of their submissions and draft orders. 3 The parties should make every attempt to reach agreement on the outstanding issues so as to minimise those still in dispute. 4 The remaining disputed issues will be determined on the papers. Catchwords: CONTRACTS – contracts of employment – retrenchment on the ground of redundancy – whether employer's redundancy policy expressly incorporated into contract of employment – whether employer otherwise promised contractually that it would continue to apply its redundancy policy – whether takeover bidder for employer contractually promised employees that employer's redundancy policy would continue to be applied – whether promises made with contractual intention – whether consideration given – whether requests by bidder for employees to do acts and whether acts done in reliance – whether employer entitled to withhold payment of ex gratia bonuses under redundancy policy unless deeds of release were signed by employees