Malicious’ tribunal claims costing business
With the no costs presumption for claims made in the Employment Tribunal it is a regrettable all too common occurrence for employees to take the view that the more categories of claim they lodge at the same time, the greater the chance they will succeed with one or some of them. Not only is this flawed thinking logically and legally, but it also wastes significant Tribunal time, paid for out of taxpayers money, and also unfairly causes significant cost, let alone stress (as no employer likes to be accused of discrimination) on employers.
According to a survey commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development , 6 out of 10 employers have faced a situation where in addition to an unfair dismissal claim, allegations of discrimination have been maliciously also added. The survey also found that over 2/3 of businesses asked stated that they felt the law currently offers “ no effective protection” against this and this results in a much higher number, some 70% resorting to the use of compromise agreements to resolve claims which they believe are unfounded. Overall, some 55% stated that they believed they had been subjected to clearly malicious claims in the Employment tribunal from employees.
There are always 2 sides to every story, but employment law is such a political area that the Government may take action to at least look at this issue in the not too distant future; particularly as this Government are hell bent on reducing the budget for courts and tribunals anyway.
