Chris Brunt is an employment lawyer who can advise employees on settlement agreements.. Chris is an associate barrister at Phillips Barristers and Solicitors and can be contacted on 200 73900 or +350 54089923 or use the email form for a free 30min consultation.

See my previous article on negotiating your settlement agreement here and a previous post on Gibraltar settlement agreements here

Gaming redundancies in Gibraltar: Before you sign a settlement agreement, check the process as well as the package.

With further redundancies and restructuring being announced in Gibraltar’s gaming sector, employees receiving Settlement Agreements should look beyond the headline figure.

The redundancy process which led to the offer may be just as important as the amount being offered.

There is renewed uncertainty for employees working in Gibraltar’s gaming sector.

Lottoland began a redundancy consultation affecting its Gibraltar operation in July 2026, as reported by GBC at the time. On 4 September 2026, GBC reported that the company had said the consultation remained ongoing, and that it had declined to confirm how many jobs could ultimately be lost.

On 8 September 2026, a bet365 spokesperson confirmed to NEXT.io plans to reduce approximately 340 roles across its European hubs, beginning with a programme of voluntary redundancies. According to press reports, around 300 of the roles are expected to be at its Stoke-on-Trent headquarters, with around 40 across Gibraltar and Malta combined.

On 16 September 2026, Entain was reported by the Gibraltar Chronicle and other outlets to have launched a consultation potentially affecting around 400 of its approximately 2,000 customer-care roles across 11 countries, including Gibraltar. According to those reports, the company did not say how many Gibraltar-based positions may be affected, and the consultation is due to end by November.

For some employees in Gibraltar, the process may eventually result in a Settlement Agreement being placed in front of them.

When that happens, the obvious question is:

“How much am I being offered?”

That is an important question.

But there is another question which should sometimes be asked first:

“What happened before I was offered this agreement?”

A Settlement Agreement arising from redundancy should not necessarily be considered in isolation from the redundancy exercise which produced it.

The package and the process are two different things

I have previously written about Settlement Agreements in Gibraltar and about negotiating a Settlement Agreement.

A fundamental point in any settlement negotiation is to distinguish money which the employee is already entitled to receive from the additional consideration genuinely being offered in exchange for giving up legal rights.

Redundancy adds another layer.

Before valuing the settlement, it may be necessary to understand whether the employer was carrying out an individual redundancy or a collective redundancy exercise, what consultation took place, how the employee was selected and what rights the proposed agreement is intended to settle.

That can materially change the assessment of an offer.

Gibraltar’s collective redundancy threshold is only five employees

This is an important feature of Gibraltar employment law which many employees may not know.

Section 76 of the Employment Act applies where an employer proposes to dismiss as redundant five or more employees at one establishment within a period of 90 days or less.

Where that threshold is met, the employer is required to consult the appropriate representatives of employees who may be affected by the proposed dismissals or by measures connected with them. (Please note if less than 5 employees are proposed to be made redundant there is still a requirement for the employer to consult the employee individually and the same principles (below) apply to a single redundancy.)

The consultation must begin at the earliest opportunity and, subject to the Act’s special-circumstances provisions, at least 60 days before the first dismissal takes effect.

Five employees is a relatively low threshold.

The threshold applies at one establishment, however, so reported job losses spread across different countries or establishments cannot simply be aggregated to determine whether the Gibraltar collective redundancy threshold has been reached.

A restructuring does not therefore need to involve hundreds of jobs before the collective redundancy provisions potentially become relevant. A relatively small team or departmental reorganisation may be sufficient.

There are exclusions within Part VIA, including certain fixed-term or specific-task contracts where employment simply ends on expiry or completion, so the provisions still have to be applied to the facts of the particular case.

“Redundancy” is given a broad meaning for these provisions

There is another feature which is easily overlooked.

For the purposes of Part VIA, dismissal as redundant is defined by section 75 as dismissal for a reason not related to the individual concerned, or for a number of reasons none of which relate to that individual.

That definition matters because an employer may describe a reorganisation as restructuring, consolidation, offshoring or a change in operating model rather than using the word “redundancy”.

The label used by the employer is not necessarily decisive.

Consultation is intended to achieve something

Collective consultation is not simply an exercise in informing employees that a decision has already been made. (The principle of consultation also applies to non-collective redundancies, that is to say individual redundancies of one or more employees.)

Section 76 requires consultation to include consideration of ways of:

• avoiding the dismissals;
• reducing the number of employees to be dismissed; and
• mitigating the consequences of the dismissals.

It must be undertaken with a view to reaching agreement with the appropriate representatives.

That does not mean that consultation must ultimately result in agreement.

Nor does the existence of a genuine commercial reason for restructuring automatically mean that no consultation is necessary.

What matters is whether the statutory consultation obligation applies and, if it does, whether consultation has genuinely taken place.

The Act contains a special-circumstances provision where compliance with certain requirements is not reasonably practicable. But this is not a blanket exemption. The employer must still take all steps towards compliance which are reasonably practicable in the circumstances.

What information should employee representatives receive?

For the purposes of consultation, section 76 also requires the employer to disclose specified information in writing to the appropriate representatives and to the Director.

This includes:

• the reasons for the proposals;
• the number and description of employees proposed for dismissal;
• the number of employees of that description employed at the establishment;
• the proposed method of selecting employees;
• the proposed method and timing of the dismissals; and
• the proposed method of calculating any redundancy payments which are not simply payments required by legislation.

That final point can be particularly relevant when employees are offered an enhanced redundancy package.

An employee may reasonably want to understand whether the proposed enhancement is calculated according to an established formula, whether employees in comparable positions are being treated on the same basis and which part of the proposed payment is genuinely being offered in consideration for entering into the Settlement Agreement.

A £20,000 “package” may not mean a £20,000 settlement

Suppose an employee is told that the employer is offering an exit package of £20,000.

On closer examination:

• £8,000 represents contractual notice pay;
• £2,000 represents accrued holiday;
• £5,000 represents redundancy entitlement; and
• only £5,000 is an additional payment conditional upon signing the Settlement Agreement.

The employee is not necessarily being offered £20,000 to surrender their legal rights.

Much of that money may already be payable.

The economically important figure may therefore be the additional £5,000.

The question becomes:

Is that additional payment sufficient compensation for the particular rights and potential claims which the employee is being asked to give up?

That cannot sensibly be answered merely by looking at the total appearing at the bottom of the agreement.

Why was this employee selected?

Collective consultation and individual dismissal fairness are related but distinct issues.

Even where an employer has complied with its collective obligations, an individual employee may still need to consider how and why they were selected.

Gibraltar’s Employment Act expressly addresses selection contrary to a customary arrangement or agreed redundancy procedure and, more generally, asks whether an employer acted reasonably or unreasonably in treating the reason relied upon as sufficient for dismissal, judged according to equity and the substantial merits of the case.

Depending upon the circumstances, relevant questions may therefore include:

• the selection pool;
• the criteria used;
• the employee’s scoring;
• whether an agreed or customary procedure was followed; and
• whether reasonable alternatives to dismissal were available.

Those matters are not a statutory checklist which mechanically determines every redundancy case. Their relevance will depend upon the particular facts.

But they may be important matters to investigate before an employee signs an agreement surrendering employment claims.

There may be a protective award where the consultation requirements are breached

The collective redundancy legislation also contains a remedy which is sometimes overlooked.

Under section 77A, an application may be made to the Employment Tribunal concerning failures to comply with section 76 or the employee-representative provisions in section 77.

Where an application is well founded, the Tribunal must make a declaration and may also make a protective award.

A protective award itself is defined by reference to employees whose dismissal or proposed dismissal involved a failure to comply with section 76.

The length of the protected period is what the Tribunal considers just and equitable in the circumstances, having regard to the seriousness of the employer’s default, subject to a maximum of 90 days.

Section 77B then deals with entitlement to remuneration under the award. Subject to its detailed provisions, the rate is a week’s pay for each week of the protected period.

This is potentially significant when considering a Settlement Agreement.

The value of a settlement cannot always be assessed properly without first understanding which claims or statutory rights may exist.

There is also a separate obligation to notify the Director of Employment

Collective consultation is not the only statutory obligation.

Under section 77E, an employer proposing to dismiss five or more employees as redundant at one establishment within 90 days must also notify the Director of Employment in writing.

The notification must be given before notice terminating the relevant contracts is issued and at least 60 days before the first dismissal takes effect, subject again to the special-circumstances provisions.

This duty is separate from the protective-award regime.

A breach of section 77E does not of itself create the protective award described above.

Section 78 instead provides that failure to comply with requirements of either section 76 or section 77E is an offence, punishable on summary conviction by a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

There is also a technical distinction between the information supplied in the statutory notification under section 77E and the wider consultation disclosure required under section 76.

In practice, an employee does not need to master those technicalities, but they underline that Gibraltar law treats consultation and formal notification as separate statutory obligations.

What about a Settlement Agreement which purports to waive these rights?

There is a particularly interesting provision in section 77F.

It provides:

“Any provision in an agreement, whether it be a contract of employment or not, is void in so far as it purports to exclude or limit the operation of any provision in this Part.”

That wording deserves attention whenever a Settlement Agreement contains a broadly drafted waiver of claims arising from a collective redundancy exercise.

I would nevertheless be cautious about going one step further and asserting that every accrued Part VIA claim can never be compromised by a later Settlement Agreement.

I am not aware of a Gibraltar decision which squarely determines the precise effect of section 77F upon the compromise of an already-accrued protective-award claim.

The safer conclusion is that an employee should not simply assume that a general waiver necessarily disposes of every Part VIA issue.

The wording of the agreement, the right in question and the circumstances in which the agreement is being entered into should be considered specifically.

Seven questions to ask before signing

An employee presented with a Settlement Agreement following redundancy should consider at least the following:

1. What am I already entitled to receive? Separate salary, accrued holiday, notice pay, redundancy entitlement and other contractual payments from the genuinely additional settlement payment.

2. Is this part of a collective redundancy exercise? Five proposed redundancies at one establishment within 90 days may be enough to engage Part VIA.

3. What consultation actually took place? If the collective provisions apply, was there meaningful consultation about avoiding dismissals, reducing their number and mitigating their consequences?

4. Why was I selected? Consider the procedure, criteria, scoring and any relevant agreed or customary redundancy arrangements.

5. Were alternatives considered? Depending on the circumstances, that may include other roles, redeployment or alternative ways of avoiding dismissal.

6. What happens to my future career? In Gibraltar’s gaming industry, restrictive covenants, garden leave, bonus arrangements, shares or options and the wording of an agreed reference may have significant value.

7. Exactly what am I giving up? The employee should understand the claims and statutory rights covered by the proposed agreement before deciding whether the additional payment is sufficient.

What should you give your lawyer?

An employee seeking advice will normally obtain more useful advice if the lawyer sees the redundancy process as well as the Settlement Agreement.

That may include:

• the contract of employment;
• the proposed Settlement Agreement;
• consultation correspondence;
• selection documents;
• redundancy calculations;
• bonus or share documentation;
• restrictive covenants; and
• any relevant grievance, discrimination, whistleblowing or other employment correspondence.

The agreement is often only the final document in a much longer process.

The headline figure is only half of the equation

There may be nothing wrong with an employer restructuring its business.

There may be a genuine redundancy situation, a properly conducted consultation process and a reasonable enhanced financial offer.

Equally, the existence of a genuine commercial restructuring does not make the statutory procedure irrelevant.

The purpose of obtaining advice is not to create a dispute where one does not exist.

It is to establish what the employee is already entitled to receive, understand the process that has been followed, identify any legitimate rights or claims being surrendered, consider the effect of post-termination restrictions and then assess whether the additional payment reflects what the employee is actually being asked to give up.

So, when a Settlement Agreement arrives, the questions are not simply:

“How much is the package?”

They are:

“What am I actually being offered?”

and

“What am I giving up in return?”

Both need to be answered before the agreement can properly be evaluated.

How I can help

I act principally for employees and advise on redundancy and Settlement Agreements in Gibraltar.

My role can include considering the redundancy process itself, contractual and statutory entitlements, potential Employment Tribunal claims, the financial package, restrictive covenants and other post-termination provisions.

Where appropriate, I can also negotiate with an employer or its legal advisers on the employee’s behalf.

If you have received a redundancy proposal or Settlement Agreement and would like advice before responding, you can contact me.

Chris Brunt

Phillips Barristers & Solicitors

292 Main Street, Gibraltar

Telephone: 200 73900

Email: chris.brunt@phillips.gi

This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Employment cases are fact-sensitive and specific advice should be obtained on individual circumstances.

References in this article to redundancies, consultations and restructuring announced by named companies are drawn from publicly available media reports and company statements, which are linked in the text. They are included for context only. The author has not independently verified them and makes no representation as to their accuracy or completeness. Nothing in this article is intended to suggest that any named company has acted, or will act, other than in accordance with its legal obligations. The position may have changed since publication, and readers should refer to the original sources and to the companies’ own announcements for the latest position.

The law and the reported developments are stated as at 17 September 2026. If you believe any information in this article is inaccurate, please contact me and it will be reviewed and, where appropriate, corrected.

See my previous posts on Gibraltar redundancies here and here