Case 2207084/2020 · Employment Tribunal

Mr N Roberts, Counsel For the 1st – 3rd v Respondent — 2020

Case reference: 2207084/2020
Decision date: 3 June 2020
Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Judge: Employment Judge Lewis
Venue: London Central
Panel members: Mr J Ballard, Mr S Pearlman

Indexed: 22 May 2026

Parties

1 named

Claimant

Mr N Roberts, Counsel For the 1st – 3rd

Respondent

Key findings

Tribunal's reasoning

The claimant was employed as Group Chief Investment Officer / Director of Mergers and Acquisitions for the SPI Group and its UK subsidiary. In June 2020 the tribunal found that Mr Yuri Schefler, the 2nd respondent, had actual or at least ostensible authority to make decisions about the claimant's employment, including dismissal. The tribunal accepted that the claimant was told on 8 June 2020 that he was fired, and it found that there had been no fair procedure and no proved fair reason for the dismissal.

The tribunal found that at a meeting on 5 June 2020 the claimant made protected disclosures about his own pay cut, the proposed treatment of his 2020 bonus, the effect of the pay cuts on staff welfare, and the suggestion that Covid was being used as a pretence for adverse decisions. It held that he reasonably believed those disclosures tended to show breaches of legal obligation and that he reasonably believed they were in the public interest, in circumstances where the company was imposing or extending a 30% pay reduction while still pursuing other business activity. The tribunal concluded that the dismissal and the 8 June 2020 telephone conduct were because of those disclosures, so the ordinary unfair dismissal claim and the whistleblowing dismissal claim succeeded, and the relevant detriment claims also succeeded.

The tribunal did not uphold the whistleblowing detriment allegation based on steps said to have been taken to terminate the 1st respondent's operations. It accepted the respondents' explanation that the company was part of a wider restructuring exercise and that the liquidation discussions were not shown to have been taken because of the claimant's disclosures. The claim for automatic unfair dismissal for asserting a statutory right also failed: although the claimant said the pay reduction could not be imposed unilaterally, the tribunal was not satisfied that this was the sole or principal reason for dismissal. This was a liability judgment only; remedy was listed for a later hearing and no monetary award was made in this decision.

Claims and outcomes

6 findings recorded

This case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.

Claim type	Issue or finding	Outcome	Protected characteristic	Award
Unfair dismissal	Ordinary unfair dismissal claim under s.98(4) ERA 1996; the tribunal found the claimant was expressly dismissed on 8 June 2020, the respondent failed to prove a fair reason, and no procedure was followed.	Upheld	—	—
Whistleblowing	Automatic unfair dismissal claim under s.103A ERA 1996; the tribunal found the principal reason for dismissal was protected disclosures.	Upheld	—	—
Whistleblowing	Detriment claim under s.47B ERA 1996 based on the 2nd respondent's conduct on the telephone call of 8 June 2020.	Upheld	—	—
Whistleblowing	Detriment claim under s.47B ERA 1996 based on the 2nd respondent dismissing the claimant.	Upheld	—	—
Whistleblowing	Detriment claim based on alleged steps to terminate the 1st respondent's operations; the tribunal found no protected-disclosure detriment in those steps and accepted the restructuring explanation.	Dismissed	—	—
Unfair dismissal	Automatic unfair dismissal claim for asserting a statutory right under s.104 ERA 1996; the tribunal accepted the claimant referred to the pay cut, but was not satisfied that this was the sole or principal reason for dismissal.

Legal tests applied

16 references

Official outcome judgment PDF

Gov.uk primary record

The official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.

Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

How we got this data

Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.

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