In the case of Tradition Securities and Futures SA v X and Anor EAT, the claimant X was unsuccessful in trying to get the tribunal to treat discrimination she had faced whilst being employed in Paris as a ‘continuing act’. The tribunal refused to consider the treatment she suffered as a ‘continuing act’ on the grounds that it only had jurisdiction to deal with the alleged discrimination that took place in England.
X, a French national was employed, by TSF for a period of 5 years. She spent three years working in the Paris office before transferring to the London office, where she worked for a further two years. In November 2006, X left her job and brought a claim against TSF for sex discrimination. X alleged that over the course of the five years she was employed, she had suffered acts of sex discrimination and harassment. At a pre-hearing review the tribunal decided that an employment tribunal could hear the allegations of discrimination relating to X’s employment in Paris, on the basis that the discrimination was a continuing act. TSF appealed.
At the appeal, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) considered the tribunal’s earlier decision and found that it had erred in its decision to hear the sex discrimination claim in connection with the period of employment in Paris. The EAT disregarded the tribunal’s ‘continuing act’ argument on the grounds that it was inappropriate to refer to S.76 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 because it only deals with time limits and not the issue of jurisdiction.
The EAT likened the position to an employee trying to establish retrospective jurisdiction for discriminatory acts committed before the Religion or Belief Discrimination Regulations came into force in 2003. X’s response to this was to argue that the sex discrimination was illegal under EU law in France at the time of the alleged discrimination. However, the EAT felt that ‘it would be very curious if the English employment tribunal… retrospectively acquired jurisdiction to consider her complaints of harassment and discrimination’ in another jurisdiction.
TSF’s appeal was allowed. However, it was also decided that any material evidence relating to the alleged sex discrimination in Paris would be admissible if it could help in going to the issue of the period of employment in London.
