Under Rule 39(1) of the Employment Tribunal (Constitution & Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013 a Tribunal is permitted to make an order requiring a party to pay a deposit not exceeding £1,000 as a condition of continuing to advance an allegation or argument in the ET1 or ET3. Traditionally Tribunals could only order £1,000 in total as a condition for continuing with the claim rather than in respect of just part of the claim.
We now have an EAT decision on the new rules which upheld the Tribunal’s decision to order a Claimant to pay a deposit order in their claim for discrimination and whistleblowing. In that case the Tribunal Judge ordered a £300 deposit order in respect of each of the seven allegations made so the deposit order was £2,100.00 if the Claimant wanted to continue with the claim in its entirety. The EAT noted the wide discretion Tribunals have in ordering a deposit and on setting the amount and confirmed that there was no overall limit to the amount of the total deposit order provided each order in respect of a specific allegation did not exceed £1,000. So in this case the seven deposit orders did not exceed the permitted amount.
Written by Laura Warrender
4th November 2014