Carolyn D’Souza (counsel) For the v Respondent — 2021

Ms Veselinovic was Finance Director of Curtin Communications Ltd. After the January 2019 management buy-out she signed over her shares and resigned her directorship after receiving assurances that her job title and remuneration would remain the same, subject to any changes in duties. The tribunal found that those assurances were misleading because, by then, the individual respondents had already formed a settled intention to reduce the cost of the finance function.

The tribunal accepted that she made qualifying protected disclosures in 2012 about the £200 withdrawal and the forged Sheraton and Venice expense receipts, and also accepted the later disclosure to Mr Curtin about the shortfall and suspicious cash withdrawals. It found that the first verbal comment to Ms Senda about a short cash deposit was not itself a qualifying disclosure because, at that point, the claimant did not yet have the necessary reasonable belief. The tribunal found that the expenses episode left Ms Senda hostile towards the claimant and that that hostility informed later treatment.

On dismissal, the tribunal held that there was a genuine redundancy situation because the company no longer required a full-time Finance Director and instead needed a part-time credit control role. It found that the redundancy consultation was genuine, that the alternative roles offered to the claimant were unsuitable, and that the dismissal was fair under s.98(4) ERA 1996. The claims for unfair dismissal, and for automatic unfair dismissal based on protected disclosures and maternity leave, were dismissed.

The tribunal nevertheless upheld maternity discrimination claims under s.18(4) EA 2010 in relation to the false assurance of 10 January 2019, denial of access to HR files, and requiring the claimant to sit at a different desk when she returned. It also upheld protected-disclosure detriment claims in part against the employer and Ms Senda, including the redundancy-risk notification, denial of access to the maternity cover's emails, the HR files issue, the desk change, the redundancy and dismissal decision, and the decision to disperse duties, while dismissing the remaining detriment allegations and the claims against the other respondents.

The sex discrimination and victimisation claims were dismissed. The tribunal found no evidence that the claimant was treated less favourably because she was a woman rather than because she had taken maternity leave, and it held that the decision to treat the 17 June 2019 grievance letter as part of the appeal process was taken on legal advice, not because of the protected act.

The s.47C ERA 1996 maternity-leave detriment claims were dismissed as out of time, although time was extended just and equitably for the maternity discrimination claims. The tribunal also held that the ACAS Code did not apply to the redundancy appeal. No compensation figure was fixed in this decision; the tribunal said any later award for loss flowing from dismissal would need to be calculated on a reduced-salary basis and then reduced by 90% to reflect the chance of a lawful redundancy dismissal in any event.