Mr AMG Kinash v Dal Sterling — 2024

The claimant applied for interim relief in relation to complaints of public interest disclosure detriment and automatic unfair dismissal. He relied on a written disclosure dated 20 February 2024 about the legality of work in the United States on an ESTA visa, and said he was removed from the US on 24 February 2024 before a redundancy process began on 27 February 2024. The tribunal also noted uncertainty about which company was the employer because no contract of employment had been produced, and that the disclosure had been sent to Mr Oliver.

The tribunal held that the disclosure was likely to contain information, rather than a bare allegation, supporting alleged breaches of legal obligations, and that it was likely to have been made in the public interest. It did not accept that the point about reasonable belief was a strong one, but the main preliminary difficulty was causation. The tribunal also recorded doubt about whether Mr Oliver was part of the claimant's employer for the purposes of s.43C ERA 1996.

Causation was the area that caused the tribunal most concern. Although there was close temporal proximity between the disclosure and the dismissal, the tribunal noted evidence that the claimant had been replaced in the US by an internal appointment, that the respondent had returned him home because of visa concerns, and that it then looked for work for him in Milan and Cyprus but could not accommodate him in the UK. The tribunal was not satisfied that there was a pretty good chance that a final tribunal would find the dismissal was solely or principally because of the disclosure, so the interim relief application was dismissed. The tribunal said this did not mean the claimant could not succeed at the final hearing.