Ms G Churchhouse (counsel) For the v Respondent — 2020

The claimant, Mrs Gouvianakis, was employed by Blackberry UK Limited from 9 February 2015 until her dismissal for redundancy on 10 February 2021. The tribunal found that her role changed after the Financial Force project and after her first maternity leave in 2018, and that when she returned part-time in April 2019 her work was largely statutory accounting. It accepted that her May 2020 performance review was the first to rate her below "meets expectations", but found that the criticisms in that review reflected genuine concerns about the standard of her work, the support she needed, and her handling of the Blackberry Germany accounts issue.

On the maternity and discrimination complaints, the tribunal rejected the allegations that Mr Foote, Ms Vasyk, Ms Johnson, Mr Merton, Ms Park or Mr Laughton-Brown acted because of pregnancy or maternity leave. It found that some alleged comments, including asserted references to being "fired" or "lying", were not proved, and that one allegation about keeping in touch during maternity leave was withdrawn. The tribunal treated the WorkDay performance-review process for employees on maternity leave as a feature of the system rather than evidence of unlawful treatment, and it found the grievance and appeal processes were handled reasonably overall, although the grievance appeal did lead to a recommendation that performance reviews for employees on maternity leave should be discussed before the review was finalised.

On redundancy, the tribunal found that the requirements for Senior Accountant work had diminished and that the respondent reasonably pooled the three Senior Accountants while excluding the more senior Finance Manager. It held that the redundancy criteria concerning independent project work, statutory accounts and complex journal entries were reasonable, that the claimant was fairly scored, and that the resulting selection for redundancy was not indirectly discriminatory because the criteria did not put women generally at a particular disadvantage and, in any event, were justified. Although Mr Chai's 10 November 2020 email pointed towards dismissal, the tribunal found that the UK decision-makers carried out a real redundancy process and that the dismissal on 10 February 2021 was not automatically or ordinarily unfair.