Mr R Plauszewski v Industrial Turbine Company (UK) Ltd — 2023

Mr R Plauszewski was an agency worker assigned as a CAD Design Engineer at Industrial Turbine Company (UK) Ltd from 15 August 2022 to 1 February 2023. His claim was that the respondent subjected him to a detriment by not renewing his fixed-term contract because he made a protected disclosure. The tribunal accepted that performance concerns had arisen from October 2022 onwards, including complaints that he took too long with queries, contacted too many people on a topic, overstepped by editing other people's models, and made errors in his work.

The tribunal found that Paul Rice had already decided in December 2022 not to renew the claimant's contract. That decision was communicated internally by 12 January 2023 and discussed with the claimant on 12 January 2023. An email sent by Paul Rice at 09:49 on 18 January 2023 also confirmed that the contract would not be extended. The tribunal accepted Paul Rice's evidence that the reason for non-renewal was the claimant's unsatisfactory performance, and it accepted that the "project work scope" explanation used in the email to the back office was a polite formulation rather than the pleaded reason.

The claimant's case depended on his meeting later on 18 January 2023 with export control officers in Canada, which he said was a protected disclosure about military data being transferred via Microsoft Teams to Canada. The tribunal found no evidence that Paul Rice knew of that meeting at the relevant time, and it rejected the claimant's suggestion that Patricia Huynh and Vasilis Katsapis must have discussed it with him. It held that the claimant's theory was speculation and that the decision not to renew had not been materially influenced by any alleged disclosure. The tribunal therefore dismissed the whistleblowing detriment claim, and said that even if a protected disclosure had been made, the claim would still have failed because the decision pre-dated it and Paul Rice had no knowledge of it.