Mr P Framjee v Crowe UK LLP and 2 others — 2020

This was an open preliminary hearing on the respondents' application to strike out claims said to be out of time and, alternatively, to strike out or make deposit orders in relation to the claimant's bonus claims. Employment Judge Joffe declined to hear a new merits-based strike-out argument about the partnership claims because it had not been properly raised in the written application and the claimant had not had a fair opportunity to respond under rule 37(2) of the Employment Tribunals Rules 2013.

On the time point, the tribunal applied the prima facie continuing act approach in Lyfar and Aziz. It held that the claimant had shown a prima facie case that the partnership allegations formed part of conduct extending over a period within section 123(3) Equality Act 2010, despite the change from partnership to employment at the end of 2020. The tribunal rejected the respondents' submission that a continuing course of conduct could not span different work relationships under Parts 5 and 2 of the Equality Act, and concluded that the question whether the alleged age-based culture truly linked the events was one for trial. It therefore did not need to decide a just and equitable extension of time.

The tribunal also refused to strike out the bonus-related claims or to make any deposit order. It accepted that the alleged Remuneration Agreement and the surrounding discussions were disputed factual matters and said the claimant's account was not inherently improbable or inconsistent with the contemporaneous documents shown at the preliminary hearing. References in the documents to status changing only while the relationship otherwise continued were capable of supporting the claimant's case. The tribunal therefore left the bonus-related age discrimination, victimisation, fixed-term employee regulations, protected disclosure detriment and unlawful deductions claims to be decided at a full merits hearing.