An employer will need to show that there is a genuine economic, technical or organisational reason to make an employee redundant after a transfer of a business. This could relate to business performance and profitability, the technology the business uses or the structure of the organisation.
The reason would also have to relate to changes in the new workforce. If you are considering making employees redundant following the purchase of a business, you should take legal advice before starting the redundancy process to ensure that you have valid grounds. If you do not, then a redundancy would be classed as automatically unfair, and the employee could make a claim against you.
As the new employer, if redundancy does go ahead, you would be liable to pay redundancy money for the whole of the employee’s period with the business.