Mr C Tilson v Financial Ombudsman Service Limited — 2024

The claimant complained that the respondent refused him an interview for a fee-paid Associate Ombudsman role because he had previously made protected disclosures. The alleged disclosures were emails in 2019 and 2020 concerning casework, investigator work, provisional decisions, and concerns raised by ombudsmen in the transition team.

The tribunal found that the 10 October 2019 email disclosed information but did not show, expressly or by implication, a problem with investigators' initial views or with the statutory ombudsman scheme, and that the claimant did not genuinely or reasonably believe it tended to show breach of the FSMA 2000 obligations relied on. It found the 10 January 2020 email was not made by or on behalf of the claimant. It found the 24 January 2020 and 11 March 2020 emails lacked the factual specificity needed to amount to qualifying disclosures, and that the claimant had not shown the required genuine and reasonable belief in breach of a legal obligation.

The tribunal also considered causation in the alternative. It found the decision to reject the Associate Ombudsman application was taken by Caroline Nugent, that there was no factual basis to infer she knew the claimant had sent the relevant emails, and that the most likely explanation was the respondent's practice of not progressing applications from former employees with disciplinary warnings on their files. The protected disclosure detriment complaint was therefore dismissed.