Alexandra Sidossis (counsel) For the v Respondent — 2021

The case concerns two claimants who started work for Introhive UK Limited on 8 October 2019 and were dismissed on 16 January 2020 and 20 January 2020. Their case was that the dismissals followed protected disclosures about alleged GDPR non-compliance, including the use and sale of IT solutions said not to be GDPR-compliant and the harvesting and use of mailbox data. Their original claims included unfair dismissal, redundancy pay, automatic unfair dismissal, detriment for protected disclosures, and, for the first claimant, victimisation. At an earlier CMPH on 4 December 2020, the tribunal dismissed the ordinary unfair dismissal, redundancy payment and other payment claims, and the first claimant's victimisation claim, after withdrawal.

This judgment did not determine the substantive merits of the remaining whistleblowing and automatic unfair dismissal claims. It decided a reconsideration request, an evidence admissibility application, an amendment application, and the respondent's strike-out application. The tribunal held that there was no relevant judgment to reconsider, recorded that the second claimant had been included on Form ET1a, and considered documents relating to the first claimant's previous settlement with a former employer and his former solicitors. It accepted that only limited parts of that material could potentially be relevant to the strike-out issues, but excluded the documents from the hearing as not sufficiently relevant, and ordered the former employer's identity to be redacted.

The tribunal allowed the claimants' amendment application, including further particulars of the alleged protected disclosures, three additional alleged disclosures, additional alleged detriments, and an amendment to seek reinstatement. It then refused strike-out under Rule 37(1)(a), holding that the claims were not vexatious, and refused strike-out under Rule 37(1)(c), waiving the Rule 9 irregularity even though the two claims were not based on the same set of facts. The tribunal applied the Selkent amendment principles, the Barker and Asda Stores authorities, and concluded that striking the claims out would be disproportionate. No monetary award was made in this judgment; the schedules of loss filed earlier, totalling £867,451.27 and £1,000,712.24, were not adjudicated here.