Mr U Ashraf v Splendid Hospitality Group LLP — 2024

This is a reserved judgment from a preliminary hearing before Employment Judge Dick at Watford (by CVP) on 30 January 2024, sent to the parties on 27 February 2024. The claimant, Mr U Ashraf, worked for Splendid Hospitality Group LLP as a senior cluster accountant from 3 May 2022 to 18 November 2022. He brought claims including harassment related to race (concerning conduct by two colleagues referred to as SP and NM) and breach of contract (for unpaid overtime and for reimbursement of ACCA/MAAT professional subscriptions). The respondent applied to strike out parts of the claim or, alternatively, for deposit orders.

Applying the principles in Cox v Adecco, Anyanwu, Madarassy v Nomura and HHJ Kaul KC v Ministry of Justice, the Judge declined to strike out the harassment allegations at incidents [1]-[6], [9], [10] and [12]-[14], holding that these were not among the most obvious cases warranting the draconian step of strike-out in a discrimination claim, and that they did not cross the threshold for a deposit order. However, the Judge struck out incidents [7], [8], [15] and [16] under Rule 37(1)(a) on the basis that the underlying complaint there was about pressure to work long hours which, given that other staff were similarly overworked, had no reasonable prospect of being shown to amount to conduct related to race within s.26 Equality Act 2010. Incident [11] was also struck out as hearsay about pressure on another employee, incapable in itself of amounting to harassment.

On the breach of contract claims, the Judge struck out the professional subscriptions head because the written contract made no provision for it and the claimant had pointed to no evidence of any verbal or written agreement. The overtime claim was not struck out but, given the written contract required overtime to be authorised in writing in advance (which the claimant accepted had not happened), the Judge made a deposit order of £400 under Rule 39, having made reasonable enquiries into the claimant's means (combined household income before tax well exceeding £50,000, with a mortgage, usual bills, some credit card debt and financial support of his mother).