Two national firms have separately lost appeals in the employment tribunal over their redundancy selection procedures.

Eversheds and DLA Piper lost cases at the Employment Appeals Tribunal this month.

The EAT upheld an earlier ruling that Eversheds had sexually discriminated against John de Belin, a former associate in its real estate investor group, in 2009 after he was selected for redundancy over a colleague who was on maternity leave.

The EAT upheld de Belin’s claim that his dismissal was unfair because Eversheds had scored him against a female colleague to whom it automatically awarded the maximum score in one of the selection criteria, because she was on maternity leave.

Eversheds argued it had allocated the female associate the maximum score to ensure it did not discriminate against her due to her maternity leave.

The EAT said the firm should instead have measured her performance against a period when she was still working, before her maternity leave.

However, it agreed to remit the original damages award of £123,300 back to the employment tribunal for reassessment.

An Eversheds spokeswoman said: ‘The firm stands by the decisions it took with respect to the treatment of women on maternity leave, which it believes is consistent with its obligations under EU and UK law.’

In a separate case, the EAT upheld a claim for unfair dismissal brought against DLA Piper by a former legal secretary.

The EAT supported a finding that the firm had made ‘procedural failings’ in reaching its decision to select the secretary for redundancy, and that its selection criteria were not capable of objective checking.

However, the EAT remitted the £29,000 damages award to the employment tribunal to consider how likely it was that the secretary would have kept her job had the correct procedures been followed.