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The redeployment obligations confirmed by the High Court today might be "pretty straightforward" in obvious hypothetical scenarios, but they're likely to become "very tricky" for employers operating in the real world, a lawyer says.

In late 2020, mining company Helensburgh Coal faced 22 unfair dismissal claims from employees who said they shouldn't have been made redundant when work was still being performed by external contractors.

But the Fair Work Commission, in four separate decisions, ultimately rejected the employer's jurisdictional objections to the claims, concluding the redundancies weren't genuine because the employees could reasonably have been redeployed into the contractors' roles.

The employer appealed to the Federal Court, arguing that section 389(2) of the Fair Work Act didn't authorise the FWC to consider potential redeployment to roles that were already filled by others. The Court rejected its arguments, and the employer took its case to the High Court. (Watch a detailed background of the case history here.)...