Mr S Tibbits, Counsel For the 1st – 4th v Respondent — 2018

The tribunal found that Ms N Lee was unfairly constructively dismissed. It held that the decisive matters were the removal of CR, AY and CX and the way the account changes were handled while she was on leave, together with the later grievance process. The tribunal rejected Splunk's explanation that she resigned to pursue Throdle.

On the FY18 EMEA Salesperson of the Year award, the tribunal rejected the sex and race discrimination claims about the decision to award it to Mr Wallbaum rather than the claimant. It accepted that Mr Bloch had a discretion within the top five candidates and was satisfied that his stated reasons were not discriminatory.

By contrast, the tribunal upheld direct sex discrimination in relation to the reallocation of CR, AY and CX and the later failure to offer the claimant larger accounts such as AN, CV and BQ. It found that these account decisions were made by Mr Gracey, were carried out without consultation, and involved giving valuable work to male colleagues. The separate complaint that sales targets were not amended was dismissed.

In the grievance process, the tribunal held that Mr Lewis's refusal to decide whether the EMEA award complaint involved sex or race discrimination was itself direct sex discrimination and victimisation. It did not find sex discrimination or victimisation in the appointment of the grievance officer, the handling of the grievance appeal, the SAR response, the delayed commission payment, or the other grievance complaints that were advanced.

The equal pay claim against the 1st respondent succeeded. The tribunal accepted that the claimant and Mr Dosanjh did like work, accepted that his higher package was driven by the need to recruit him, but held that the respondent could not justify the pay differential by a proportionate material factor defence. Remedy was not quantified in this judgment; the tribunal directed that it be dealt with at a later hearing.