At the conclusion of a preliminary hearing, the judge said that judgment would be promulgated 4 days later if the parties had not reached agreement before then. The parties did reach settlement and the Claimant emailed the ET to withdraw her claim and sought to have it dismissed. She also requested that the judgment not be promulgated or published. However, the EJ promulgated and published the judgment and declined to have the judgment withdrawn from the register, saying that he did not have the power to do so, but that, even if he had such power, he would not exercise it in the circumstances. The Claimant appealed.

The EAT allowed the appeal. The EJ erred procedurally in not treating the claims as having been withdrawn and dismissing them on that basis and instead issuing a substantive judgment dismissing claims against two of the three Respondents. Additionally, the EJ had erred in failing to consider that the Claimant’s withdrawal of her claims brought them to an end, and instead he treated them as ‘live’ when promulgating his judgment and in refusing to reconsider his judgment. It was appropriate to reconsider the EJ’s substantive judgment and to dismiss the Claimant’s claims on her withdrawal of them.