Mr Papa Dialla Gueye Dit Cissoko v Rio Tinto Mining and Exploration Ltd — 2020

Mr Papa Dialla Gueye Dit Cissoko brought claims against Rio Tinto Mining and Exploration Ltd arising out of employment in Mali. The ET1 referred to unfair dismissal and race discrimination, and also mentioned an additional box 8.1 allegation that two employees had robbed him of US$20,000 and the original power of attorney. The respondent applied to strike out the claims under rule 37, with a fallback application for a deposit order under rule 39.

The tribunal found the employment relationship was overwhelmingly connected to Mali. The claimant had Malian and Senegalese nationality, was recruited in Mali, lived and worked there, was paid in West African francs, and his contract was in French and provided for local conciliation and the Bamako Labour Court. The respondent's British registration and the fact that the power of attorney was governed by English law were not enough to create the necessary connection with Great Britain. Applying the Lawson territorial jurisdiction principles, and the later guidance in Duncombe and Ravat, the tribunal held there was no sufficiently strong connection with British employment law.

On time and service, the tribunal noted that the claim was presented more than 13 years after the alleged dismissal in April 2006. It rejected the claimant's explanation that he could not bring the case until 2019 because he had recovered computer data only in May 2019, and held that he had known the relevant facts long before then. It also held that his alternative case based on the power of attorney did not assist because the POA was not the employment contract. For the discrimination complaints, the tribunal found they were not set out clearly in the claim form, were not identified as Equality Act claims, and no application to amend had been made; the complaints were also very stale and would have required extensions of time. The tribunal concluded that the claims had no reasonable prospect of success and dismissed them in their entirety under rule 37, with no monetary award made.