Mr S Doyle v Glasgow Credit Union — 2023

Mr Doyle presented claims of automatic unfair dismissal and whistleblowing arising out of his suspension and removal from office as a non-executive director of Glasgow Credit Union. At a preliminary hearing he was ordered to give fuller particulars of the disclosures relied on, the legal failures said to be disclosed, why the disclosures were in the public interest, and why they were said to have been made in good faith, together with documents and a witness statement. He later confirmed that he was relying only on two disclosures: an alleged disclosure to the FCA about financial mismanagement, retained profit and dividend position, and a disclosure to Mr Keenan about alleged breach of integrity rules by the chair; he no longer relied on a disclosure in the ET1 because it post-dated the detriment relied upon.

Applying rule 37 and the authorities on strike out, the tribunal held that the first disclosure was capable in principle of amounting to a protected and qualifying disclosure and that whether the respondent knew of it and whether it caused the detriment were matters for evidence. It reached the same conclusion about the second disclosure, noting the claimant's case that Mr Keenan was a senior board director and that the board may have known of the disclosure. The tribunal did not accept that it could conclude on the papers that either disclosure had no reasonable prospects of success.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant had not fully complied with the orders and had not exchanged a witness statement, but it held that strike out would be disproportionate. It considered the overriding objective, the claimant's attempts to engage, the basic information the respondent had been given, and the possibility of dealing with any prejudice by less drastic means than bringing the case to an end. The respondent had also conceded worker status. The strike out application was refused and the case was allowed to proceed to a final hearing, where the tribunal would decide whether the disclosures were protected and qualifying and whether they were the reason for the treatment relied upon.