The Respondent is a Singapore-based charity. The Claimant worked in London at the residence of Mr Werner Erhard (who was initially the Second Respondent to the claim). On 26 April 2016, the Claimant entered into a “Confidentiality and Independent Consulting Agreement” (“the Agreement”) with the Respondent. This contained an arbitration clause in favour of an arbitration seated in Singapore, to be conducted pursuant to the Rules of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (“ICC”). After the Claimant resigned in April 2019 he made a number of allegations concerning the alleged mistreatment of members of staff who worked at the London residence by Mr Erhard. The allegations are denied by the Respondent. On 21 July 2021, the Respondent instigated arbitration proceedings in the ICC International Court of Arbitration in Singapore on the basis that the Claimant had breached his confidentiality obligations under the Agreement. On 21 November 2021, the Claimant filed his ET claim for post-termination detriment for making protected disclosures. He relied upon three detriments. The first two are not relevant for present purposes, as it is not suggested that they are caught by JPI. The third detriment was the malicious bringing of the arbitration proceedings to punish the Claimant for his whistleblowing and to seek to stifle the free discussion of Mr Erhard’s abusive behaviour. The Respondent argued that the detriment was barred by Judicial Proceedings Immunity (JPI) in that the arbitration proceedings were quasi-judicial proceedings. The ET disagreed and the Respondent appealed.

The EAT allowed the appeal. the ET had erred in approaching the question on the basis that the alleged detriment was the fact of the Respondent commencing arbitration proceedings against the Claimant in Singapore and in rejecting the applicability of the immunity on the basis that it did not apply to prevent the bringing of a second set of proceedings. The ET had misunderstood the basis upon which the immunity was asserted and had failed to focus on the detriment that was pleaded, namely that the Respondent had initiated a groundless arbitration in Singapore based on false allegations. The ET had thus failed to appreciate that this claim was founded upon the contents of the documentation initiating the arbitration and that this brought it within the established ambit of judicial proceedings immunity. Although broad descriptions of the core immunity in earlier cases such as Lincoln v Daniels [1962] 1 QB 237 fell to be considered in the light of subsequent authorities, particularly (for present purposes) Singh v Reading Borough Council [2013] EWCA Civ 909, [2013] 1 WLR 3052 and Daniels v Chief Constable of South Wales [2015] EWCA Civ 680, these cases did not depart from the position that a claim founded upon the content of a statement of case filed in earlier proceedings would generally be caught by the immunity. The ET had failed to apply this approach, apparently confining the core immunity to words spoken or written in the course of giving evidence. Furthermore, given that the ET accepted that the arbitration involved a quasi-judicial body (as required by Trapp v Mackie [1979] 1 WLR 377) and consistent with the observations of Sir John Donaldson MR in Hasselblad (GB) Ltd v Orbison [1985] QB 475, the common law principles of comity and the strong public interest in ensuring harmony between English law and foreign jurisdictions in the context of foreign-seated arbitrations, it made no material difference to the application of the immunity that the arbitration proceedings were based in Singapore.