The Claimant brought various claims against the three Respondents including unfair dismissal, unlawful deductions and breach of contract. Three claims succeeded against two of the Respondents. The Claimant submitted that the two losing Respondents had either voluntarily removed themselves from the register of companies for the purpose of trying to avoid liability for the complaints that the Claimant had made against it or had acted unreasonably in failing to object to a compulsory strike off from the register, again in order to avoid liability. Neither Respondent was ultimately removed from the register or dissolved. In each case, this was because of preventative steps taken by the Claimant. A costs order was made against the Respondents on the grounds that the conduct was unreasonable and that it amounted to the Respondents’ conduct of the proceedings. The Respondents appealed on the basis that use of the expressions “in relation to the proceedings” and “in the context of…proceedings” raised a question as to whether it had correctly applied the test referred to in rule 76 of “the way that the proceedings…have been conducted”. They argued that acting in a way that made a judgment more difficult or even impossible to enforce did not, of itself, amount to the conduct of the proceedings, even if it could be said to be related or connected to the proceedings. Other remedies might be available in company law against directors who acted in that way.

The EAT dismissed the appeal. The intention of the Respondents was to bring the proceedings to an end by frustrating the Claimant’s ability to establish liability on the merits of her complaints. The ET properly concluded that such conduct was not extraneous to the proceedings. Rather, it was part of the way in which the Respondents went about resisting the complaints against them. As a matter of law, it was entitled to reach that conclusion.