Ms R Sutherland v Intesa Sanpaolo S.P.A. — 2025

The claimant was a long-serving London branch employee in the Nostro team. She first sought permanent home working in September 2021 because of childcare difficulties, and later made a second request on 24 January 2023 after her son’s needs had increased and she was off sick with stress, anxiety and depression. The tribunal found that the respondent’s handling of FWR1 involved unreasonable delay, largely because Mr Stewart objected to being presented as the sole decision-maker, but the section 80H complaint concerned FWR2. It held that the claimant’s email of 24 March 2023, saying she would 'come back' when able, justified the respondent in pausing further discussion, so there was no breach of the flexible working procedure. The respondent ultimately granted permanent home working in July 2024, after the claim period, when further information about the child’s care needs was provided.

On disability, asthma was conceded as a disability throughout. The tribunal found that the claimant’s mental impairment of stress, anxiety and depression became a disability from 1 November 2022, earlier than the respondent’s concession of 1 March 2023, because by then it had continued for nearly six months with no sign of improvement and was likely to last at least 12 months. The section 15 claims based on the 12 October 2022 'mutiny' email, the 20 March 2023 staffing/restructuring email, and the alleged delay to FWR2 all failed. The tribunal held that those matters were not unfavourable treatment because of disability, and in relation to the delay it found the claimant, not the respondent, had caused the process to pause.

The reasonable adjustments claim also failed. The tribunal accepted that the office-attendance and home-working PCPs made attending work difficult for the claimant personally, but it found that the difficulty stemmed mainly from childcare and commuting arrangements rather than from asthma or the mental impairment as such. It held that the claimant had not shown a substantial disadvantage arising from asthma, and that the respondent did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know of a relevant mental-health disadvantage before 1 November 2022. The harassment claims based on the same three matters were dismissed for similar reasons: the conduct was not related to disability in the required sense, and it did not have the required purpose or effect.

The tribunal dismissed the direct sex discrimination claims, including the refusal of FWR1 on 1 April 2022, the alleged failure to decide FWR2 or allow 100% home working by the claim date, and the August 2020 overtime complaint. It also dismissed the indirect sex discrimination claim. The majority accepted that the office-attendance PCPs put women at a particular disadvantage because women are more likely to bear childcare responsibilities, but it held that the respondent’s aims of teamwork, collaboration, training and support, and corporate identity and culture were legitimate and that the PCPs were proportionate; Tribunal Member Mr McLaughlin recorded a dissent on proportionality. Victimisation, whistleblowing detriment, the section 47E flexible-working detriment complaint, and the section 44 health-and-safety detriment complaint were also dismissed. No remedy was awarded.