Did Not Attend For the v Mrs Grace Woolford, Commercial Director — 2021

The claimant was employed by Vector Resourcing Limited as a Recruitment Consultant and later as a Director. His contractual salary was £2,750 gross per month. He resigned during the summer of 2020, gave the required 12 weeks' notice, and the agreed expiry of notice was 30 September 2020. The contract also contained garden leave and restrictive covenant provisions, including clauses preventing competing activity and solicitation of clients while notice was running or during garden leave.

On 21 September 2020 the claimant posted on LinkedIn that after 22 years he had decided to leave Vector and was embracing a new challenge. He also emailed Donna Medway confirming his exit at the end of the month. The respondent treated the LinkedIn post as showing that he had reduced his notice period and wrote that the actual termination date had been 18 September 2020. The tribunal did not accept that analysis. It found that the claimant had not communicated any earlier resignation before 30 September 2020 and had not received income from a third party.

The tribunal also rejected the respondent's contention that the LinkedIn post amounted to solicitation of clients or breach of the garden leave and restraint clauses. It found that the post was only a general statement that his employment would be ending soon and that at some stage he would be involved in a new venture. There was no specific solicitation of any clients and no breach of the contractual restraints proved on the balance of probabilities.

Because the claimant remained entitled to be paid his normal salary for September 2020, the respondent's failure to pay £2,750 was both a breach of contract and an unlawful deduction from wages. Judgment was therefore entered for the claimant in the gross sum of £2,750.