In person For the v Respondent — 2024

The claimant was employed from 30 May 2022 as account director for the respondent's Tesco and M&S accounts. He alleged that he made protected disclosures about the respondent requiring him to act as full-time account director for both clients and that he was dismissed and otherwise treated detrimentally because of those disclosures. The tribunal applied the statutory test in s43B ERA 1996 and the authorities it cited, including Chesterton Global Ltd v Nurmohamed, and found that the claimant's repeated complaints about excessive workload to Natalie Leach and Jamin Edwards were not qualifying disclosures because they were not made in the reasonable belief that they were in the public interest and the claimant had not said that his health was being endangered. It also rejected the alleged October 2022 conversation with Zoe Jordan as a specific disclosure of breach of contract or harm to health.

The tribunal accepted that in December 2022 the claimant told Jamin Edwards that he believed the respondent's contracts with Tesco and M&S required separate account directors, and that this was a qualifying disclosure made to his employer. It found that the claimant believed the information related to a failure to comply with legal obligations under those contracts and that the public interest requirement was met. That was the only protected disclosure upheld. The tribunal then considered the alleged detriments under s47B ERA 1996 and, applying the causation approach it cited from Fecitt v NHS Manchester, found that the failure to provide an appeal was not a detriment and in any event was not shown to be because of the disclosure, that removal from the M&S account was a detriment but was done because Helen McCabe was the best person for that role, and that the respondent's failure to answer the solicitor's letter of 31 July 2023 was not a detriment.

On the automatically unfair dismissal claim under s103A ERA 1996, and applying the burden of proof approach from Kuzel v Roche Products Ltd, the tribunal found that the respondent had shown a clear reason for dismissal: the breakdown in the relationship with Tesco, including client concerns about the claimant's performance and the absence of any alternative role. It accepted evidence that the respondent considered other options, appointed Helen McCabe to M&S because of her expertise, and then terminated the claimant's employment on 20 March 2023 with notice and garden leave. The tribunal found that the protected disclosure made in December 2022 was not the reason or principal reason for dismissal, so the automatically unfair dismissal claim was dismissed. No remedy was awarded because both claims failed.