Claimant v Marks and Spencer PLC

The Tribunal found no arguable detriment in most allegations. Where detriment was arguably established, there was no sustainable basis for alleging the treatment was because of race. The evidence did not support a theory of discrimination and in some respects the Claimant's own case argued against it. No prima facie case of discrimination was made out.

Specific allegations including exclusion from social events, denial of promotion opportunities, pay complaints, furlough decisions, redundancy selection, and grievance handling all failed. The Tribunal found either no detriment or no causal link to race. The redundancy selection placed both black PAs below white colleagues, but this was fully explained by the legitimate scoring process with no evidence of manipulation on racial grounds.

The Tribunal found redundancy was the true reason for dismissal. The Claimant's RLB PA grade was deleted, creating a genuine redundancy situation. The Respondent acted reasonably in treating redundancy as sufficient reason for dismissal. The selection process was fair: appropriate pool, genuine three-stage consultation, reasonable selection criteria fairly applied. Dismissal was within the band of reasonable responses.

The Tribunal was satisfied it was much more likely than not that the Claimant was not underpaid as alleged. Contemporary documentation was consistent with the Respondent's case and none corroborated the Claimant's. The Tribunal found it entirely implausible that a 10% underpayment would have gone unnoticed for three years.

The claim for unpaid wages was also put as breach of contract. The Tribunal treated it as falling under the Tribunal's contractual jurisdiction but it failed on merits for the same reasons as the unlawful deduction claim: no evidence of actual underpayment between 2014-2017.