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Employer awarded huge costs for ‘vexatious’ claim

22 September 2020
Issue: 7903 / Categories: Legal News , Employment
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A hotel group has secured a costs award of £432,000 at an employment tribunal, which lawyers believe to be one of the largest in the tribunal’s history

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels successfully defended a claim brought by its former senior vice president for procurement Chee Hwee Tan for unfair dismissal, discrimination, victimisation, harassment, whistleblowing and unfair deduction from wages. The tribunal held the claim was pursued unreasonably and found no evidence of discrimination or harassment.

The claimant submitted more than 3,000 pages of documents before the tribunal, including covert recordings of staff.

David Israel, partner at Royds Withy King, which acted for Millennium & Copthorne, said: ‘This was quite clearly a vexatious claim with no grounding in reality.

‘Mr Tan was given plenty of opportunity to withdraw his claim yet chose to proceed and attempt to manipulate the system in the full knowledge that he would lose.’

Employment tribunals rarely award costs, even if someone is unsuccessful, and when they do the average award made would only be £2,400.

Issue: 7903 / Categories: Legal News , Employment
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