The Claimant was made redundant and was awarded redundancy and holiday pay at the ET. The Respondent did not file a response and was denied an extension of time to do so and therefore did not partake in the remedies hearing. The award was over £12,000 and the Respondent made an application for written reasons and an application for reconsideration of the Judgment, setting out detailed calculations about why it considered that the figures ordered to be paid to the Claimant were wrong. The EJ dismissed both the application for written reasons and the application for reconsideration, recording that under r.21 of the ET Rules of Procedure 2013 (the equivalent rule now being r.22 of the ET Rules of Procedure 2024), the Respondent could only participate in the proceedings to the extent permitted by the Judge who heard the case. The Respondent appealed.

The EAT allowed the appeal. The decisions in Talash Hotels v Smith UKEAT/0050/19/00 and Office Equipment Systems Ltd v Hughes [2018] EWCA Civ were considered and applied. There is no absolute rule that a Respondent who has been debarred from defending a claim on liability is always entitled to participate in the determination of remedy. It would generally, however, be wrong not to read or consider written submissions or representations on remedy from a defaulting Respondent. In this case, the combined decision to refuse to provide reasons, or to consider submissions from the Respondent was an error. It was unclear why or how the Tribunal had settled upon the figure used for a weeks pay for the purpose of the redundancy calculation given the apparent agreement in the ET1 and ET3 on the level of monthly pay. Further, the basis upon which the award for holiday pay was calculated was wholly unclear. It was not clear if that had been brought as a claim for unlawful deduction from wages, or under the WTR 1998, when the holiday year was said to have started from, or what, if any agreement, there was between employer and employee as to entitlement to holiday pay. Those matters needed to be considered by the Tribunal. The claim was remitted.