Mr Boniface Chijioke Igwe v Tribal EMEA Limited — 2025

This is a costs judgment following a strike-out hearing on 12 September 2025. The claimant had originally brought claims including unfair dismissal (later withdrawn for lack of qualifying service), a breach of Regulation 7(1) of the TUPE Regulations, a claim recast as breach of the implied term of trust and confidence, and a holiday pay claim. The Employment Judge dismissed the TUPE claim for want of jurisdiction (and would have struck it out in the alternative), struck out the trust and confidence claim as having no reasonable prospect of success, and made an agreed unless order in respect of the holiday pay claim requiring the claimant to clarify it within two weeks.

On the respondent's costs application under the Tribunal's Rules of Procedure 2024, the judge applied the two-stage test under Rule 74(2): first finding that the claimant had acted unreasonably in bringing and continuing the TUPE and trust and confidence complaints despite repeated cost warning letters and legal representation, and that the conduct of the holiday pay claim was also unreasonable; and second, exercising discretion in favour of making a costs order.

The respondent claimed £6,735.73 (counsel's brief fee of £3,000 and solicitors' costs of £3,735.73). The judge found counsel's fee reasonable, reduced the solicitors' costs to 50% (£1,867.87) given the absence of a detailed schedule and unreasonable hourly rates and totals, and applied a further 10% discount to reflect that the holiday pay claim survived. The judge declined to take the claimant's financial circumstances into account under Rule 82. The claimant was ordered to pay a contribution to the respondent's costs of £4,381.08.