A former law firm employee who ‘unreasonably’ brought an employment tribunal claim has escaped a costs penalty.

Offshore firm Harvey Westwood Reigels LLP had presented a costs schedule of more than £46,000 following the abandoned unfair dismissal claim from former data protection officer listed as Mr S Baig.

Employment Judge Burgher, sitting at the East London Hearing Centre, said Baig had been ‘unreasonable in his inertia’ in determining the proper basis of his claim. But the firm’s application for costs was dismissed on the basis that Baig’s conduct actually prevented him making a different claim and ultimately saved the firm from incurring further costs.

The tribunal heard Baig was employed from March 2020 until his dismissal in November 2020 and claimed to have been sacked after highlighting ‘systemic failures’ in the firm’s compliance approach. The firm said the claim was ‘misconceived’.

Baig presented his case without taking legal advice and wrongly believed that the provisions applying to data protection officers undertaking their duties could be enforced in the employment tribunal.

When he was sent a strike-out warning letter saying he had not been at the firm long enough to bring a complaint of unfair dismissal, he again acted without legal advice and maintained he was dismissed for undertaking his data protection officer duties.

Following further correspondence, Baig wrote to the tribunal withdrawing his claim and saying the matter was being reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office. He later said that he ‘panicked’ in withdrawing the claim and was not aware he could have brought a separate whistleblowing claim.

The judge said Baig should have taken steps to establish how to properly progress his case, and the firm had successfully argued the claim was misconceived and that he acted unreasonably.

But had the claimant acted reasonably and sought legal advice, it was likely there would have been an application to amend the claim to a whistleblowing one for which there was no qualifying period of employment.

The judge said: ‘It is highly likely that such an application would have been allowed and the respondent would have been required to meet the costs of defending that claim in full.

‘By withdrawing his claim when he did the respondent was spared further costs of contesting the claims. It therefore benefited from the claimant’s unreasonable conduct that resulted in him withdrawing his claim instead of applying to amend.’

He added that the costs claimed were 'excessive’ for a claim that had not even got as far as a preliminary hearing.

 

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