With GTA 6 a little over a month from release, Rockstar is in the final phase of an employment case in Glasgow, Scotland, brought by former staff fired in October 2025. At the latest session, HR director Charlie Kinloch was questioned about an alleged informant inside the union's Discord and about the timing of the dismissals. The case matters because it decides whether Rockstar fired people for leaking information or for organizing a union.

What is on trial

On October 30, 2025, Rockstar fired 34 employees in the UK and Canada. According to the IWGB (Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain), 31 of them were members. The former employees say they were dismissed on a single day, without notice and without a chance to respond, and accuse the company of acting to stop the union from growing.

Rockstar says the firings were for gross misconduct: according to the company, the employees shared confidential information about GTA 6's development on a Discord server. When the hearings opened in September, Rockstar's side said it accessed a room on that server in mid-October 2025 with more than 300 people, including former employees, people from rival companies and a journalist, and that it contained insulting messages about managers and references to game features. The former employees deny leaking secrets and say many of the cited messages were trivial everyday complaints.

The HR director's testimony

Charlie Kinloch, HR director and co-studio manager at Rockstar Lincoln, testified last week. According to Kotaku and Eurogamer, he said his interest was in limiting the risk of leaks, not in knowing who was or wasn't in the union. Per Eurogamer's account as relayed by GTA BOOM, Kinloch said he had a "broad" interest in unionization because of its effect on managers, but little interest in individual employees' union conversations.

The most sensitive point is "AB," an anonymous employee who allegedly passed Kinloch screenshots from the union's Discord. Rockstar says AB acted voluntarily. The former employees claim AB was compensated with time off for it. AB is not among the witnesses who will testify, and the dismissed workers' lawyers asked the tribunal to take that absence into account.

The former employees' lawyer also challenged the company's response time. Kinloch said he had seen problematic comments months before the firings and explained the urgency in October 2025 by the server's rapid growth and an approaching major GTA 6 announcement. The lawyer pushed back by asking whether waiting 18 months was acting "as quickly as possible." A few days after the firings, Rockstar delayed GTA 6 from May to November 2026.

The union's argument

The IWGB argues the firings came as the union was close to reaching 10% of the workforce, the threshold that allows it to seek formal recognition in the UK. According to Kotaku, the information passed to Kinloch showed the union was about 12 members short. The former employees are seeking reinstatement or compensation.

In January 2026, the same tribunal rejected a request for interim relief that would have kept paying the dismissed workers until trial. The judge said at the time she could not conclude that union membership would likely be found to be the main reason for the firings, but that decision does not predict the final outcome.

What we still don't know

  • When the ruling comes: the hearings began on September 10 and are expected to end around October 16. The tribunal will decide after that, with no date set.
  • Impact on the game: nothing points to an effect on the launch. GTA 6 is still set for November 19, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, as explained in our story on the release date.
  • More witnesses: other Rockstar managers are still expected to testify this week.

The case is separate from the wave of leaks attributed to the CyberLeek group, which Rockstar is also dealing with right now and which we covered in another report.