In person For the v Respondent — 2020

The claimant was employed by Pakistan Tobacco Company Limited from 13 October 2008 as an Area Manager in Pakistan. The tribunal found that he lived and worked exclusively in Pakistan, or on secondment in Sri Lanka, and never in the UK. He was paid in rupees, paid tax in Pakistan, had no right to work in the UK, and his contract and secondment arrangements pointed to Pakistan as the governing law and place of employment.

The respondent was a UK-registered company within the British American Tobacco group, but the tribunal held that this was not enough to displace the territorial pull of Pakistan. Although the claimant had regular contact with UK colleagues by electronic means, had signed the global Standards of Business Conduct, and the group's whistleblowing process could escalate matters to officers in the UK, those features were treated as consequences of a British-owned, UK-headquartered group rather than a sufficient connection to Great Britain for ERA 1996 purposes.

Applying the territorial scope authorities, including Lawson v Serco Ltd, Duncombe, Ravat, Jeffery and Hottak, the tribunal concluded that the claimant's employment had a far stronger connection with Pakistan than with Great Britain. It found no sufficient connection to bring either the unfair dismissal claim or the protected disclosures detriment claim within the scope of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

The tribunal therefore dismissed the claims for want of jurisdiction. It noted, but did not decide, a further potential issue that an unfair dismissal claim under section 111(1) ERA 1996 must be brought against the claimant's employer, which was Pakistan Tobacco Company Limited rather than the respondent named in the proceedings.