Mr Kemp, Counsel For all the v Respondent — 2017

The claimant had worked for the first respondent in the UK from 1 September 2014 and, after discussions in 2016 and 2017, signed a new contract with the second respondent on 31 May 2017 to take up a role in Zug from 4 September 2017. The tribunal found that she had agreed a termination of her UK employment, that the Swiss contract was governed by Swiss law and Swiss jurisdiction, and that by the relevant period she was working under Mr Schmidt in Switzerland, being paid in Swiss francs into a Swiss bank account with Swiss deductions.

The tribunal applied the Lugano Convention 2007, including articles 5.5, 9 and 18, and the territorial connection principles in Lawson v Serco, Ravat, Duncombe and Bates van Winkelhof. It found that the second respondent was a separate Swiss company, that its Zug office was not a branch, agency or establishment for article 5.5 purposes, and that the claimant's employment during the relevant period was not sufficiently connected with Great Britain to found territorial jurisdiction under the Employment Rights Act 1996 or the Equality Act 2010.

The tribunal rejected the claimant's reliance on alleged access problems to the Zug server and on a continuing UK data-protection role, treating those matters as administrative error or oversight. It concluded that it had no jurisdiction over claims arising from the Swiss employment between 4 September 2017 and 19 October 2017, and the claims were dismissed. No remedy was awarded.