Mr M R Alem v Interr Limited — 2022

Employment Judge Gardiner held that the Claimant's claim had been presented on 31 January 2022 without an Early Conciliation Certificate number at paragraph 2.8 of the ET1, and with the box ticked to say that no certificate number was available. The judgment records that the Claimant only instigated the ACAS Early Conciliation process on 1 February 2022, and received the certificate number R13057/22/08 on 3 February 2022.

The tribunal found that this meant early conciliation had not been started, let alone completed, when the claim was presented. The judge said the Claimant was wrong to say that he had forgotten to include the ACAS certificate number, because no number existed on 31 January 2022. The requirement to complete early conciliation before presenting a tribunal claim was treated as a necessary precondition to jurisdiction and could not be waived or rectified retrospectively.

The judgment states that the tribunal's administrative staff were wrong to accept the claim. The claim was therefore dismissed under Rule 27 of the Employment Tribunal Rules 2013, and the judge said it ought to have been rejected at the outset under Rule 12(1)(c). No substantive merits findings or remedy assessment were made.