Mr M Z Sami v Denny Enterprises International Ltd — 2025

Mr Sami presented his claim on 1 May 2025 and applied for interim relief on the basis that he had been automatically unfairly dismissed for making protected disclosures. The alleged disclosures were an email on 29 April 2025 to a director and his line manager about refusing to backdate expiry dates on chlorine-based pool chemicals, and an online report to the Health and Safety Executive later the same day. The respondent said he had already been dismissed at a meeting on 28 April 2025 for unrelated performance or conduct reasons.

The tribunal applied the section 129 ERA 1996 "likely" test, referring to His Highness Sheikh Khalid Bin Saqr Al Qasimi v Ms T Robinson and treating "likely" as meaning a pretty good chance of success. It accepted that the disclosure email could amount to a disclosure of information and could indicate a belief that there had been a breach of legal obligation or a health and safety risk, and that the email could also indicate a public interest belief. However, it could not at the interim stage find that those beliefs were likely to have been reasonably held, especially because the respondent said the label changes were lawful and posed no risk. The HSE report was not produced, so the tribunal could only infer that it was similar in substance and faced the same difficulty.

The tribunal also found that Mr Sami had not shown it was likely that he would prove the dismissal took place after the disclosures or that the disclosures were the principal reason for dismissal. The email relied on as the dismissal email referred to a meeting on 28 April 2025 about termination rather than itself ending the employment, and the respondent produced a dismissal letter dated 28 April 2025, a solicitor's email of that date, and CCTV stills said to support its account that dismissal had already occurred. On that basis the application for interim relief was refused, and the judge stated that the judgment did not establish facts for the later full hearing.