It's the law regarding redundancies where I live (currently going through one now) that everyone should be evaluated against all open positions. Not just open, all remaining ones as well. So you can't just axe a specific team, those people could lay claim on the same role in different positions, and be evaluated against objective criteria (like experience, tenure etc).

So it's a huge thing we're going through in my company now. Last week lay offs were announced, and by end of this week everyone will have been evaluated against the remaining positions.