A permanent anonymity order in favour of the Second Respondent to the ET proceedings was made under Rule 50 of the Employment Tribunals (Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013. The main, though not the only, considerations that led the EJ to make the permanent anonymity order were that the Claimant had unilaterally withdrawn her claim against the Respondent before her allegations were tested in evidence and ruled upon, and that she had continued to make allegations against the Respondent in breach of rule 50 orders, and had falsely asserted to third parties that she had won a sexual harassment claim against him. The Claimant appealed against the making of the anonymity order.

The EAT dismissed the appeal. The EAT judgment reviewed the law relating to derogations from open justice in the ET, as it relates to orders for permanent anonymisation. The EAT decided that the EJ applied the law correctly in this case, and that her decision was neither plainly wrong nor one that a reasonable EJ could not have reached. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed. The permanent anonymity order in favour of the Respondent therefore continues, and it applies to the EAT proceedings as it does to the ET proceedings. The EAT also granted anonymity to the Claimant, both in respect of the ET proceedings and the EAT proceedings.