Rockstar faces tribunal in Glasgow over 2025 union firings
The final hearing over Rockstar's 2025 dismissals is underway in Glasgow. What each side argues, what was said about GTA VI, and when a decision is due.
Rockstar Games' most sensitive labor dispute has reached the courtroom. On September 10, 2026, the final hearing opened at the Glasgow Employment Tribunal in the claim brought by former staff dismissed in October 2025, backed by the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB). It's expected to run for about five weeks, with a decision due at the end of October, just weeks before GTA VI launches.
What each side argues
Former staff and IWGB | Rockstar | |
|---|---|---|
Reason for dismissal | Union activity: the IWGB had grown to around 10% of the workforce | Gross misconduct: sharing confidential information outside the company |
Where | A private union Discord server with about 340 members, all under NDA | An insecure channel with 300+ people, including former staff, rival developers and at least one journalist |
What they want | Reinstatement or compensation, plus a ruling that the dismissals were unfair | Confirmation that the dismissals were justified |
34 people were let go across the UK and Canada, and 23 are taking part in the tribunal. They say they were dismissed on October 30, 2025 without the usual disciplinary process, and that someone inside the server had been passing information to management for over a year. At an earlier stage, the tribunal refused them interim pay, saying it couldn't conclude that union membership was likely to be found the principal reason for their dismissal.
What was said about GTA VI
Rockstar's case leans heavily on how valuable information about the game is, describing it as one of the company's most closely guarded secrets:
- The studio says the server discussed GTA VI features and information that could indicate whether development was on schedule, while stressing it isn't claiming the game was behind.
- Its barrister argued those unannounced features would be "huge news" for fans and investors, enough to move Take-Two's share price.
- Rockstar said a hacking group tried to blackmail it in the weeks before the hearing, that drones were once used to photograph inside its offices (prompting privacy film on some buildings), and that it has blocked Discord on company IT.
- On day three, September 14, former employee and server admin Dayne Oram gave evidence. He said the comments came up in discussions about working conditions and weren't project information. Rockstar challenged him over copying two internal emails from its VP of HR into the server, even citing impersonation risks like those behind the 2022 hack.
The IWGB's response is that there was no leak at all, and that the messages Rockstar cites didn't even mention GTA VI; according to the union, it was Rockstar that tied them to the game during the proceedings.
Our take
There's no ruling yet, and it's worth not getting ahead of one: the tribunal has to decide whether the real reason for the dismissals was confidentiality or the union. What the hearing has made clear is how much GTA VI's secrecy shapes everything at Rockstar, something that also comes through in Bloomberg's deep dive into the game's development, which features one of the dismissed staff. We'll report the decision once it's out.
