The claimants issued proceedings seeking a protective award following their redundancy for which there was no consultation after their employer went into administration. They went through the proper ACAS process, were allocated an EC number and submitted the claim form. The claim form was rejected 15 months later as the name of the respondent differed from that on the ACAS certificate. They appealed stating that the Tribunal simply made a mistake and there was no discrepancy.

In this short judgment, HHJ Tucker allows the appeal as

It is clear, in my judgment, from looking at those documents that the name of the prospective respondent on both of those is set out as follows: George Birchall Service Limited

In the light of that, and although unnecessary for his conclusion, he also adds his support to the proposition that it would not be in the interest of justice to reject the claim for this reason.