EAT ruling on the ambit of Without Prejudice Privilege

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (Mr Justice Cavanagh) has published its ruling on 7 February 2023 in Scheldebouw B.V. v Mr Martin Evanson in respect of an appeal concerned with the point at which discussions between the parties became covered by “without prejudice” privilege.

Paras Gorasia successfully acted for Mr Evanson before the EAT with Heather Williams KC acting for Mr Evanson at first instance. The appeal concerned a finding by the Employment Tribunal that certain communications between the parties concerning payment for accrued but untaken holiday pay was not covered by without prejudice privilege and thus admissible for the purposes of a full hearing in this matter.

Scheldebouw appealed this decision to the EAT on the basis of various grounds of appeal including that the ET had made an error of law in its application of legal principles and/or drawn perverse conclusions from its primary findings of fact. The EAT reviewed the relevant case law in this area and dismissed the appeal on all grounds.

Paras Gorasia was instructed by Alex Pearce (Senior Associate) at Pinney Talfourd Solicitors.

The EAT Judgment can be found here.

Please contact Callum Stebbing (c.stebbing@doughtystreet.co.uk) or Sam Cooper (s.cooper@doughtystreet.co.uk) for more details about this case and/or Paras’ practice.