The special circumstances defence 




Under the TUPE regulations, an employer may be able to reduce or even escape a protective award for inadequate consultation if they can point to “special circumstances” that made it “not reasonably practicable” to consult, provided they can show that they did everything reasonably practicable to consult given those circumstances. See page 383, Chapter 11: Collective consultation for information on what amounts to “special circumstances”. The case examples in Chapter 11 apply equally to protective awards made in the context of TUPE.