Bradley Jones v J.P. Morgan Securities plc — 2021

The tribunal considered a single unfair dismissal claim. It found that Mr Jones was dismissed on 31 January 2020 for alleged gross misconduct said to arise from the LOGN trading on 6 January 2016. The judgment recorded that the Respondent had reviewed the matter in 2016 and decided that it did not warrant disciplinary action, but that after the 2019 market conduct review it reopened the issue and applied a new spoofing policy retrospectively to the earlier trades.

The tribunal held that the real reason for dismissal in Mr Bristow’s mind, and accepted on appeal by Mr Thakur, was not conduct or some other substantial reason but the Respondent’s desire to appease regulators by showing that it was “cleaning up its act”. In the alternative, it found that neither decision-maker had a genuine belief in misconduct, that there were no reasonable grounds capable of sustaining such a belief, and that the investigation was not reasonable because it failed to pursue a number of available lines of inquiry, did not reconstruct key trading data, and was conducted after a lengthy delay. It also found the procedure unfair, including because Mr Bristow acted as both investigator and disciplinary decision-maker.

The tribunal further found that dismissal fell outside the band of reasonable responses, that the Claimant had not engaged in spoofing, and that his conduct did not cause or contribute to the dismissal. It held that no Polkey deduction could be made and that the Respondent had breached the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures. The judgment was on liability only and stated that a full remedy hearing would be required.