Miss M Okunola v Global Prime Partners Ltd PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2023

At the preliminary hearing, the tribunal accepted that the ordinary unfair dismissal claims in the two case numbers had been withdrawn under Rule 52. It then considered the employer point and preferred the respondent's evidence. The tribunal found that the claimant's employer was Titan Wealth Holdings Ltd, as named in the contract she signed, not Global Prime Partners Ltd, and that she was not a worker of GPP under s43K ERA 1996 or an employee for s83(2) Equality Act 2010 purposes.

On that basis, the tribunal struck out the remaining claims in case 2210731/2022 against GPP under Rule 37(1)(a) as having no reasonable prospects of success. Those claims included automatic unfair dismissal under s103A ERA, whistleblowing detriment under s47B ERA, victimisation under s27 Equality Act 2010, and the race discrimination claim in that case number. The tribunal accepted the respondent's explanation for the group payroll and internal cross-charging arrangements and rejected the claimant's case that the contract was a forgery or sham.

In case 2200267/2023, the tribunal held that the direct race discrimination complaint about the July 2019 decision not to offer the claimant the permanent CASS Oversight Officer role was out of time. It rejected the argument that there was a continuing act from 2019 to 2022, treated the recruitment decision as a one-off act, and declined to extend time on a just and equitable basis after considering the four-year delay, the effect on memory, the absence of a record of an application, and the lack of documentary evidence that any application had been passed on by recruitment agencies. The claim was dismissed and the tribunal did not go on to the prospects-of-success question.