In person For the v Respondent — 2022

The claimant brought a claim for automatic unfair dismissal under s.103A Employment Rights Act 1996, alleging that he had made protected disclosures about the microorganism used in the manufacture of Carduelis batch 4 and about the safety of the ingredient for human consumption. The tribunal accepted that the respondent later changed its position on the strain and that there were internal concerns about the scientific and commercial consequences of using CGS008, but it did not accept that the claimant had made protected disclosures on the dates and in the terms he alleged.

The tribunal found that the alleged disclosures said to have been made after 15 January 2020, including any oral disclosures to TN, RT, JBJ and TS and the alleged disclosure during a trip to Belgium on 24 January 2020, were not established on the evidence. It placed weight on the 5 and 6 February 2020 email exchange with Steve Martin, which in the tribunal's view showed the claimant was still seeking information about possible toxic compounds and had not previously raised the issue in the way he described. It also found that the claimant's 6 February 2020 email did not contain sufficient factual content to amount to a qualifying disclosure under the approach described in Kilrane v London Borough of Wandsworth.

The tribunal further found that, by the end of January 2020, the respondent had decided not to use Carduelis batch 4 for commercial purposes and the claimant knew that. It also found that the claimant knew the respondent was updating the GRAS dossier for a later manufacturing run using RUT-C30, and that the claimant had no evidential basis for saying that any non-commercial use of batch 4 would avoid informing the relevant trial or ethics bodies. In any event, the tribunal was satisfied that the principal reason for dismissal was the respondent's concerns about the claimant's performance, including his handling of data, his failure to complete the techno-economic presentation, and later problems in the batch 5 trials. The claim was therefore dismissed.