Mr R Roberts v RELX Group plc and others — 2024

This is a preliminary hearing judgment and deposit order arising from a hearing on 8-9 February 2024. The tribunal considered allegations and arguments listed in Appendix 1, applying the strike-out test (no reasonable prospect of success, rule 37(1)(a) ET Rules 2013) and the deposit order test (little reasonable prospect of success, rule 39(1)).

The judge struck out a number of specific allegations of direct race, age and gender discrimination, victimisation and whistleblowing detriment against named individual respondents (including Ms Hill, Ms Jackman, Ms Smyth, Mr Engstrom, Mr Udow, Mr Jones and Ms Meredith), citing their having no reasonable prospect of success on the available material. The judge also identified 77 further allegations or arguments as having little reasonable prospect of success and ordered the claimant to pay a deposit of £60 per allegation as a condition of being permitted to continue advancing them, giving a total possible deposit of £4,620 if all were pursued.

The tribunal recorded the test for strike-out in discrimination cases (referencing Mechkarov v Citibank, Tayside Public Transport v Reilly, Ezsias v North Glamorgan NHS Trust, Ahir v BA, Van Rensburg v Kingston upon Thames and AH v Ishmail), and considered the claimant's stated salary (£34,502 gross) and prior earnings (£75,000) when fixing the deposit at £60 per allegation. PDF text is truncated from 88,800 characters; the precise list of which allegations were struck out as opposed to subject to deposit may not be exhaustively captured.