Ms R Zhang, Personal Representative of Mr H Liu v Huawei Software Technologies Co. Ltd and 1 other — 2024

At the preliminary hearing on 28 and 29 January 2025, the claimant, as personal representative of Mr H Liu, pursued claims arising from life insurance, Saturday working and holiday entitlement, together with pleaded unlawful deduction from wages, holiday pay and breach of contract claims. The tribunal recorded that the unlawful deduction and breach of contract claims were withdrawn and dismissed, and that the WTR holiday pay claim was withdrawn after the amendment application was allowed. The remaining issue was whether it was just and equitable to extend time under s.123 EqA for the race discrimination claims.

The judge proceeded on the most generous basis and treated the discrimination claims as roughly five years out of time rather than older still. The claimant said she had misunderstood the limitation position after a Google search, and the tribunal accepted that the misunderstanding was genuine, but found it was not reasonable in the circumstances. It noted that by November 2019 she knew Mr Liu had only R1 life insurance, by August 2020 she considered the holiday and overtime position to be unfair, and yet she did not seek employment advice until June 2024 and did not present the claim until 10 September 2024. The judge accepted that she had been grieving and had limited English, but also found that she had been able to take other steps in relation to Mr Liu's estate, insurance and a clinical negligence claim.

On prejudice and merits, the tribunal found a real risk that records, witnesses and memories had been lost or faded, particularly for the Saturday-working allegation, and noted that R2 had deleted some data in line with GDPR obligations. It also considered the pleaded direct discrimination case weak because R1 and R2 were separate legal persons and there was no evidence of race-based less favourable treatment, and considered the indirect discrimination formulation legally defective because the alleged PCPs were applied by separate respondents and the comparator groups were materially different. Balancing all factors, the tribunal refused to extend time and struck out the discrimination claims.