Mr J Appiah Caesar v Anti-Graffiti Systems Ltd RECORD OF A PUBLIC PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2025

The tribunal held a public preliminary hearing on 1 April 2025 and found that it could hear the claims against Anti-Graffiti Systems Ltd (AGS One) and Andrew Sim because the claimant had produced valid ACAS early conciliation certificates against them. It identified the live respondents as AGS One, trading as Anti-Graffiti Systems Ltd, and Mr Sim, who was the managing director of the first respondent. The claimant said he had worked for AGS from 2016, later through Jessklin Limited, and the respondent’s case was that the claimant contracted through Jessklin Limited rather than as a personal employee of the first respondent.

On employment status, the tribunal found no reasonable prospect that the claimant could show that he was an employee of the first respondent for the purposes of unfair dismissal or breach of contract. It relied on the absence of any express personal-service contract, the claimant’s own evidence that he was self-employed, payment under IR35, the ability to accept or refuse work, and the absence of mutuality of obligation and sufficient control. Applying the authorities it cited, including section 230 ERA 1996, Autoclenz, Ready-Mixed Concrete, Uber, MHC Consulting v Tansell and Croke v Hydro Aluminium Worcester Ltd, it struck out the ordinary unfair dismissal, automatic unfair dismissal, breach of contract, unlawful deduction from wages and holiday pay claims.

The race discrimination claim was also struck out. The tribunal held that the claimant had no reasonable prospect of showing the employment status required by section 83 EqA 2010, so the claim was out of jurisdiction, and it separately found that there was no evidence that Andrew Sim had done anything unlawful in relation to the claimant. On whistleblowing, the tribunal said the claimant met the wider worker definition in section 43K ERA 1996, but still struck out the protected disclosure detriment claim because the pleaded disclosure differed from the draft List of Issues and the allegations were undated and vague. No deposit order or monetary remedy was made; all claims were struck out.