Mr J Horan, counsel For the v Mr S Devonshire, one of Her Majesty’s counsel — 2018

Mr C H Tan was employed by Copthorne Hotels Ltd as Senior Vice President, Procurement from 1 February 2012 until 12 February 2017. The age, sex, marriage/civil partnership discrimination claims and the unlawful deductions claim had already been withdrawn at a preliminary hearing, and the whistleblowing detriment claim had been withdrawn before the final hearing. The whistleblowing dismissal claim was withdrawn at the start of the final hearing. The tribunal therefore determined the remaining unfair dismissal, race discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, victimisation and harassment claims.

On harassment, the tribunal found that Mr Tan and Dr Catherine Wu had a close personal friendship and exchanged frequent WhatsApp messages and social contact. It accepted that Dr Wu used terms such as 'diva', 'queen' and 'prima donna', but found those comments were part of that close friendship and did not violate dignity or create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. The separate race allegation, that on 5 November 2016 Dr Wu told him to behave more like Chinese, was found to have been made, but it was a single mild incident that did not amount to harassment and was also out of time; the tribunal rejected any just and equitable extension.

The race and sexual orientation direct discrimination claims about salary, bonuses, LTIPS and share awards were dismissed. The tribunal found that Mr Tan rejoined on £138,000, later received £142,000 and then £160,000, and that bonus and share awards were set on the same percentage basis for SVPs generally. It accepted the respondent's evidence that operational heads were paid more than functional heads because of their revenue and estate responsibilities, and it found no facts from which discrimination could be inferred.

The victimisation claim failed because the relevant decision-makers did not know of the alleged protected acts. The unfair dismissal claim also failed: the tribunal accepted that procurement was restructured so that the regional heads would report to the CFO, found that this was a genuine redundancy under section 98(2)(c) ERA 1996 and that the consultation, conducted by written representations because of the claimant's sick leave and medical advice, was fair under section 98(4). There was no suitable alternative employment and no remedy was awarded; the tribunal also said that, even if dismissal had been unfair, the claimant's covert recordings would have led to dismissal in any event once discovered.