Ex-employees of the lobbying firm co-founded by Peter Mandelson are preparing a mass claim for lost pay.
LONDON — U.K. staff at the collapsed lobbying firm co-founded by Peter Mandelson were not given a paid consultation period before they lost their jobs, the company’s administrators have confirmed to POLITICO.
Former employees of Global Counsel say that they are each thousands of pounds out of pocket after their roles and salaries ended last month.
Some former staff, granted anonymity to talk about internal matters, have compared their situation unfavorably with that of Mandelson, who received a payout after Keir Starmer sacked him last year as Britain’s ambassador to the U.S. over his links with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The U.K. government handed Mandelson a £75,000 severance payment after he left his job as ambassador, according to documents released by the U.K. government. He had initially requested the remainder of his contracted salary, which would have totaled £547,201, and was paid out the smaller sum in an effort to prevent potential litigation over his severance, the documents showed.
Mandelson separately transferred his 1.2 million remaining shares in Global Counsel to three people on Feb. 6, two weeks before the firm collapsed. It is not clear whether Mandelson was paid for the shares or how much, but they could potentially have been worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Around 80 London-based staff lost their jobs when Global Counsel, which Mandelson co-founded in 2010, called in administrators on Feb. 19.
Representatives for the administrators, Interpath Ltd, told staff the next day that their paid employment would end with immediate effect, said two former staff members, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal matters. However, the administrators did not provide a paid consultation period for staff who were being made redundant.
Plans to file
While it is common not to provide such a consultation period when firms go into insolvency, one is legally required in the U.K. for large-scale redundancies and must run for at least 30 days.
This means former staff are entitled to file a mass legal claim in the form of applying for a “protective award,” compensating them for the lack of a consultation period through the U.K. employment tribunal system.
A spokesperson for the joint administrators at Interpath confirmed: “As the exit of customers left the company facing insolvency, the U.K. business was unable to continue to trade while the statutory notice periods be run.”
Dozens of former U.K. staff are now planning to apply for a protective award, the same two former staff members told POLITICO. When a claim is successful against an insolvent firm, employees are able to receive a maximum of £5,752 each from the Insolvency Service.
However, Interpath representatives warned in the Feb. 20 meeting that this process could take up to nine months, the same two former staff members said.
‘Let down’
One of the two former staff members complained that they had suffered financial repercussions while watching Mandelson receive severance from the government.
The other complained the situation had been “dealt with very, very badly” and staff had felt “let down.” However, a third person praised Global Counsel for running payroll before the firm’s collapse to ensure staff were paid up until the final day they had worked.
Companies House records show Mandelson transferred his remaining 1,192,137 shares in Global Counsel on Feb. 6. Mandelson’s legal representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
The firm said at the time that his shares had been fully acquired by three individuals — the firm’s then-Managing Director Rebecca Park plus “an existing board member [and] shareholder.” The firm did not disclose who those people were.
Global Counsel has not announced how much, if anything, Mandelson was paid for his shares. Until the scandal, Global Counsel — from which Mandelson resigned as a director in May 2024 — had been boasting “significant progress.” Operating profit exceeded £1 million in 2024 thanks to what the company called a “significant market opportunity arising from increasing geopolitical uncertainty.”