Mr A Akabogu v Notting Hill Genesis — 2022

On 27 January 2022 the claimant sent the tribunal an email and a document headed "Current Claims" saying that claims he was withdrawing were "No longer pursuing". Employment Judge N Walker held that the withdrawal was clear and unequivocal, that the claimant had said he had legal representation at the time, and that there was nothing to suggest the tribunal should not have acted on the withdrawal. The tribunal therefore treated the original 2 February 2022 judgment as a Rule 52 dismissal of the withdrawn claims and refused reconsideration under Rule 71.

The tribunal rejected the claimant's argument that the withdrawal was not intentional or that his counsel had acted without authority. It distinguished Campbell v OCS Group UK Limited and another UKEAT/0188/16 on the basis that, unlike that case, the claimant here was not shown to be withdrawing under stress and had presented himself as represented. The tribunal also found no basis to say that issuing the dismissal judgment would not have been in the interests of justice.

At the 28 January 2022 preliminary hearing, the tribunal tried to identify the live issues and considered whether a reasonable adjustments complaint could be formulated. It found that the ET1 and later wording did not set out the claim in a comprehensible way, allowed time and breaks for the claimant to address it, and refused leave to amend because the proposed amendments were unclear and the prejudice to the respondent outweighed any prejudice to the claimant. The judgment states that the disability issue was never determined because the claimant had withdrawn all disability claims apart from the reasonable adjustments point, and that the victimisation claim was based on race. No monetary remedy was awarded or assessed in this procedural judgment.