Mr N Mendy v 1 Motorola Solutions UK Ltd 2 Motorola Solutions Inc 3 Mr T Bell — 2022

At the open preliminary hearing on 13 January 2023, Employment Judge Grewal considered the Claimant's application to strike out the response and the Respondent's application to strike out the claim. The Claimant clarified that the only live complaint was about Mr Bell's refusal on 19 May 2022 to provide the requested subject access request material; the earlier correspondence about the 4,776 documents was treated as background. The Judge refused the Claimant's application to strike out the response and then considered the Respondent's application under rule 37(1) of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013.

The Tribunal accepted that the relevant events were largely documented and not materially in dispute. The Claimant had objected to his data being shared with Osborne Clarke for review and redaction, and on 2 July 2021 he was told that, if that remained his position, the request could not progress. When he raised the same issue again in May 2022, Mr Bell refused the request on the basis that it was manifestly unfounded and/or excessive, taking into account that it repeated an earlier request, a year had passed, and the information could be obtained in the ongoing litigation. The ICO later told the parties that Motorola had complied with its data protection obligations and had provided the SARs as per guidelines.

Applying the authorities cited, including North Glamorgan NHS Trust v Ezsias, Anyanwu v South Bank Students Union, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police v Bailey, and Shamoon v Chief Constable of the RUC, the Tribunal held that there was no reasonable prospect of the Claimant establishing detriment or the required causal link to race or to any protected act. It found that the Claimant had not put forward any basis for saying that a white employee or someone who had not done a protected act would have been treated differently. The claim for victimisation and race-related harassment was therefore struck out.