Mr Adebola Adeyemo v HYDE INTERNATIONAL (UK) (Appearance not entered) and 2 others — 2018

The claimant, Mr Adebola Adeyemo, described himself as black African. The tribunal found that he was unfairly dismissed from his finance role in September 2016 when the respondent reduced the Capital Accountants team from three posts to two as part of a wider restructure driven by rent reductions and financial savings. It accepted that there was a genuine redundancy situation and that the dismissal reason was redundancy, but held that the dismissal was unfair under section 98(4) ERA 1996 because of defects in the way the selection process was conducted.

The tribunal accepted that the employer had set up a potentially fair redundancy selection exercise, using the criteria customer focus, delivery focus and leadership, and that the claimant had initially chosen a paper-based assessment while returning from bereavement, paternity, compassionate and sick leave. However, it found two main sources of unfairness. First, senior managers had conveyed to Ms Patel, who was responsible for selection, that they favoured Andrew McIntosh and expected the claimant to go. Second, the claimant had been told the paper exercise would be based on his performance review and workflow, but Ms Patel also relied on her own personal knowledge and views, particularly in relation to the claimant, rather than confining the assessment to the stated materials.

The tribunal also found inconsistencies in the claimant's scoring, including a lower score in the selection exercise than in his performance review and a harsh leadership score that did not match the evidence recorded. It did not re-run the selection itself, but concluded that the process was tainted by overt signs of unfairness and was therefore outside the band of reasonable responses. A remedy hearing was left to determine the consequences, and the tribunal noted there was a significant chance the claimant might have been selected even if a fair process had been followed.

The race discrimination claims were dismissed. On direct discrimination, the tribunal accepted the employer's explanations for the 2011 restructure, the later creation and recruitment of a new Management Accountant role, and the 2016 redundancy exercise, and said there was no evidence that the dismissal or earlier treatment was because of race. On indirect discrimination, the tribunal said the pleaded PCP, namely that the respondent did not carry out Equality Impact Assessments, had not been properly articulated or shown to disadvantage persons of the claimant's race, and in any event an Equality Impact Assessment had been carried out during the appeal before the dismissal was upheld.