Mr J Newall v 1) Oxford Coversis Ltd, 2) Ruxley Holdings Ltd & 3) Mr A M Muddyman OPEN PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2019

This was an open preliminary hearing on 22 July 2019 before Employment Judge Tsamados sitting alone. The tribunal was not deciding the merits of the claim. It dealt with the claimant's application for leave to amend his particulars of claim and the respondents' application for further particulars of the claimant's protected-disclosure case.

The tribunal allowed the amendment. It accepted that the proposed amendment added new factual allegations about disclosures said to have been made to Mr Gary Muddyman and also introduced two new legal obligations, but it was not a new cause of action. Applying the Selkent discretion under rules 29 and 30 of the Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013, the judge concluded that the hardship to the claimant if amendment were refused outweighed the additional work for the respondents and that, with further timetabling, the December 2019 final hearing would not be put in jeopardy.

The tribunal also granted the respondents' application for further particularisation. Referring to section 43B of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the judge held that the claimant had to give sufficient particulars of the basis for his reasonable belief that the disclosures were made in the public interest; at that stage he had done no more than recite the statutory wording. The claimant was also directed to provide the dates of the alleged disclosures separately in the later case management discussion.