With the news that Derby Studios was to close in March, and the recent allegations of unpaid wages and withheld redundancy packages, there has been quite a stirring going on regarding the situation of the former Core Design studio responsible for the creation of Tomb Raider. Rebellion acquired the studio in 2006.
Jas Purewal, a lawyer with Oslwang LLP and a writer for GamerLaw confirmed that the Derby studio, being a separate legal entity, is not dependent on Rebellion’s situation to pay employees their missing wages and redundancy packages.
"The mere fact that it has a solvent parent company is immaterial," stated Purewal. "Since generally parent companies are not legally obliged to rescue their insolvent subsidiaries. A parent company is only liable to contribute funds to its insolvent subsidiary if there is some pre-existing debt which the parent already owes to the subsidiary. Generally if there is no debt, there is no obligation."
"Employees of an insolvent company are termed 'preferential creditors' and are therefore entitled to have their wages and redundancy payments paid to them in priority to most other creditors' claims. However, this depends entirely on whether the insolvent employer company has the funds to actually pay them with," he added.
"It's worth bearing in mind though that if you are made redundant by a company in the UK and that company is unable to pay you, there is a statutory body called the Redundancy Payments Office. The office was set up expressly to help employees where their companies either cannot or will not pay them." [Thanks GI.biz]
Rebellion Studios as of yet has failed to respond to any inquiry for comment.
