In person For the v No participation — 2019

At a preliminary hearing on 8 April 2022, Employment Judge R Lewis considered the claimant’s application for reconsideration of the rejection of his ET1. The claim, presented on 11 February 2021, sought to challenge and set aside the earlier Watford Employment Tribunal judgment promulgated on 20 December 2019 in cases 1300349/2017, 1301347/2017 and 3334419/2018, on the basis that it had been procured by fraud. The respondent did not participate, and the hearing was conducted on jurisdiction only; the judge did not hear evidence about the underlying fraud allegations.

The tribunal held that, even assuming the broad principle in Takhar v Gracefield Developments Limited [2019] UKSC 13 could apply in employment tribunal litigation, a freestanding common law claim to set aside an Employment Tribunal judgment for fraud was not a claim that the Employment Tribunal had jurisdiction to hear. The judge said the Employment Tribunal is a creature of statute and has only the jurisdiction given by statute, so the claim could not proceed there. The judge also noted that the claimant had already exhausted the ordinary remedies of reconsideration and appeal in the earlier proceedings. The original rejection under Rule 12 was therefore upheld, and the application for reconsideration was refused. The judge said that, while the proceedings might arguably not be an abuse of process, no further determination on that point was necessary.