Rockstar Denies 'Keep Tabs' Claim as Glasgow Tribunal Examines 34 Firings

By The News Desk, Previously

October 17, 2026

Rockstar Games’ most senior human resources executive has denied, under questioning at an employment tribunal in Glasgow, that he instructed managers to keep tabs on union membership at the company — and has rejected the suggestion that the dismissal of 34 workers last year was revenge against a union.

Two independent reports of the hearing, from Qazinform reporting Anadolu Agency and from Edinburgh Live reporting PA Scotland, agree on the central facts of the case and on the words used in the witness box this week. What they describe is a contested hearing, with sharply different accounts from the company and from the former workers who brought the claim. This story reports those accounts as what they are — testimony and allegations before a tribunal that has not yet ruled — and does not present either side’s version as established fact.

What the tribunal is deciding

Qazinform, reporting Anadolu Agency, said the tribunal is examining the dismissal of 34 workers in October 2025. Edinburgh Live, in a report by PA Scotland journalists Nick Forbes and Neil Pooran with Jacob Farr, likewise reported that Rockstar dismissed 34 employees across the UK and Canada in October last year. Both outlets reported that 23 former employees are taking part in the tribunal, that most were previously based at Rockstar North in Edinburgh, and that they are backed by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, known as the IWGB.

The legal question, as both reports framed it, is why those workers were dismissed. The claimants allege they were unfairly dismissed for trade union activities. Rockstar’s position, stated consistently in both reports, is that the workers were dismissed for sharing confidential company information on a Discord server. Edinburgh Live reported that Rockstar has said it will vigorously contest the tribunal and has accused the former employees of breaching confidentiality rules by discussing sensitive information on a Discord server which had hundreds of participants. A company spokesperson quoted in coverage of the hearing put the position in full: individuals across the UK and Canada were dismissed for gross misconduct following the sharing of confidential company information, not because of alleged trade union membership or activity, and the company rejects the claims and will defend them vigorously.

Lawyers for the claimants are expected to allege, according to both Qazinform and Edinburgh Live, that the workers were unlawfully blacklisted and targeted for their union activities. That, too, is an allegation the tribunal will test — it is not a finding.

“Categorically not true,” Spampinato told the tribunal

The witness at the centre of this week’s reports was Robert Spampinato, Rockstar’s vice president — described in some coverage as global head — of human resources. Qazinform reported that Spampinato told the tribunal in Glasgow that allegations he had instructed managers to “keep tabs” on union membership were “categorically not true.” A separate PA report carried by the Thetford and Brandon Times used the same formulation: Spampinato told the tribunal it is “categorically not true” to suggest he asked staff to keep tabs on union membership at the company.

Edinburgh Live reported a second denial in similarly direct terms. Giving evidence at the tribunal, Spampinato said the suggestion that employees were dismissed in an act of “revenge” against a union was “preposterous,” arguing that those who were dismissed had made “disparaging” comments which breached company policy. Coverage of the cross-examination reported that when it was put to him that two individuals were “sacrificed for the purpose of plausible deniability,” he replied that it was a ridiculous question, and that when dismissals were put to him as revenge against the Rockstar IWGB branch, he again denied it.

The anonymous source and the screenshots

Part of the hearing, as reported by both Qazinform and the PA coverage, concerned how management obtained information about union activity in the first place. Qazinform reported that the tribunal heard an anonymous employee had passed information about union meetings and recruitment activities to human resources managers, and that Spampinato acknowledged the information helped management follow workplace grievances but denied any attempt to suppress union activity.

The PA report carried by the Thetford and Brandon Times added detail from the cross-examination. It reported that Richard O’Keefe, representing the claimants, took Spampinato to screenshots of an IWGB meeting attended by a number of Rockstar employees, which had been provided to an HR executive by an employee referred to only as “AB.” The lawyer said evidence showed the executive had “solicited” this information from his source, and asked whether the compiling of trade union information covertly would have been a concern, including about its legality. Spampinato replied, in that account, that there was no compiling of information — the source had passed along one update that included it.

Those exchanges matter because they go to the heart of the dispute. The claimants’ case, as their lawyers have framed it, is that monitoring and targeting followed from information gathered about union activity. The company’s case, as Spampinato presented it, is that there was no such monitoring programme, and that the dismissals followed disparaging and policy-breaching posts, not membership. The tribunal, presided over in Glasgow, will have to decide which account the evidence supports. Previously is not deciding it here.

Spampinato said Rockstar was in “crisis mode” over the GTA VI delays

One answer from the witness box connected this case directly to the game Rockstar is about to release. Qazinform reported that when Spampinato was asked why the dismissals occurred in October 2025 despite some information being available earlier, he said Rockstar was in “crisis mode” because of delays to Grand Theft Auto VI. “We were in a moment when we knew we were running late on the development,” he was quoted as saying.

That context is not in dispute as a matter of public record: Grand Theft Auto VI was delayed twice and is now scheduled for release on November 19, 2026, a little over a month after this hearing. The workers who brought the claim had been working on GTA VI prior to their dismissals, Edinburgh Live reported. How, or whether, the pressure of that schedule bears on the lawfulness of the dismissals is a question for the tribunal, not for this report.

A rally outside, and a ruling still to come

Edinburgh Live reported that those who brought the case held a rally on Thursday morning outside the Glasgow Tribunals Centre, where attendees waved banners and chanted, and some former employees gave speeches recalling the moment last October when they were told they were being sacked. The image is a reminder that, whatever the legal outcome, 34 people lost their jobs at the studio in a single month, and 23 of them have spent a year pursuing this claim.

The tribunal proceedings are continuing, Qazinform reported, and no ruling is reported in any of the coverage cited here. That is the most important sentence in this story for readers to carry away. Denials have been given, allegations have been put, and evidence about Discord posts, screenshots and an anonymous source has been heard and challenged. None of that is a verdict.

Previously has covered the final month before launch from the development side as well, including the launch countdown in Miami and the reporting that the game is still in its final development push. This tribunal is the other side of that same month: the biggest launch in games arriving while a court in Glasgow decides how the company treated some of the people who were building it. We will report the ruling when the tribunal delivers it, with the same care — findings stated as findings, and everything else attributed to whoever said it.