Case 2200315/2021 · Employment Tribunal
Mr N Smith, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2020
- Case reference
- 2200315/2021
- Decision date
- 6 September 2020
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Adkin
- Venue
- London Central
- Panel members
- Mr G Bishop, Dr V Weerasinghe
Parties
1 namedClaimant
Mr N Smith, Counsel For the
Respondent
- —
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant, Mr Giles Sablin, was employed by Advance Global Capital from 2015 and became Chief Investment Officer in 2017. The case concerned the firm’s segregation of functions, invoice verification, and transactions including Logros Ecuador and Great Tao. The tribunal accepted that AGC was a small, non-profitable investment manager and that the claimant had been a strong performer earlier in his employment.
The majority found that three disclosures made in 2020 were qualifying protected disclosures: the email of 11 May 2020 about Great Tao, lack of investor communication, lack of audit and FCA principles; the formal whistleblowing notification of 10 June 2020; and the July 2020 emails alleging that a statement to investors was misleading. By contrast, the majority did not accept that the 2018 Logros Ecuador emails or the 2019 Great Tao emails were qualifying protected disclosures. The minority member disagreed on some of those earlier disclosures and on the redundancy causation analysis.
The unlawful detriment claim failed. The tribunal rejected the broad allegation of an increasingly tense and hostile atmosphere, held that the 2018 'dirty work' email and the 2020 redundancy notification could not found liability as pleaded, and found that the grievance and whistleblowing investigations were carried out adequately in the context of a small organisation. It also found that delays in answering document requests were explained by workload, and that the redundancy process was not a sham.
Both the automatic unfair dismissal claim under s.103A ERA 1996 and the ordinary unfair dismissal claim under ss.94 and 98 ERA 1996 were dismissed by majority. The tribunal found that the Board had decided in February 2020 to make the CIO role redundant as part of a wider cost-base reduction, before the qualifying disclosures were made, and that the dismissal fell within the range of reasonable responses. A later order recorded that the race discrimination and other payments claims had been withdrawn and dismissed.
Claims and outcomes
5 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whistleblowing | Unlawful detriment claim under ss.43B and 47B ERA 1996 dismissed by majority. The tribunal found qualifying protected disclosures on 11 May 2020, 10 June 2020 and 2/9 July 2020, but held that the alleged detriments were either not made out, not timely, or not shown to be because of those disclosures. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Unfair dismissal | Automatic unfair dismissal claim under s.103A ERA 1996 dismissed by majority. The tribunal found the decision to make the role redundant was taken in February 2020, before the qualifying disclosures, and that the principal reason was a cost-base reduction in a non-profitable business. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Unfair dismissal | Ordinary unfair dismissal claim under ss.94 and 98 ERA 1996 dismissed by majority. Redundancy was accepted as the reason for dismissal and the redundancy consultation/process was held to fall within the range of reasonable responses. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Race discrimination | Withdrawn and recorded as dismissed following withdrawal by order dated 20 December 2021; no substantive race discrimination findings are given in the merits reasons. | Withdrawn | Race | — |
| Other | Withdrawn and recorded as dismissed following withdrawal by order dated 20 December 2021; described only as 'other payments' in the order. | Withdrawn | — | — |
Legal tests applied
14 references- s.43B ERA 1996
- s.47B ERA 1996
- s.103A ERA 1996
- s.98(4) ERA 1996
- s.139(1)(b) ERA 1996
- s.48(3) ERA 1996
- s.207B ERA 1996
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Official outcome judgment PDF
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