Employment law brief: 14 October 2022

• Early conciliation certificates in multiple cases.
• Legal professional privilege—no retrospective effect.
• Reconsideration of judgments and default by a representative.
• Possible bias by an Employment Appeal Tribunal side member.

Employment case law in the last month has concentrated largely on matters of procedure, rather than substance. The first two cases show that, in fields as intensively ploughed as these, very particular points can still arise for determination at appellate level. They concern applying the early conciliation rules to multiple cases, and whether legal professional privilege can ever apply retrospectively to documents which as initially produced were not privileged. The third and fourth cases concern fairly well-established rules (on reconsideration of judgments and possible bias by a side member) but provide particularly interesting examples, with the odd twist.

Early conciliation certificates

The judgment in Clark and Others v Sainsburys Supermarkets Ltd and Another [2022] EAT 143 starts by expressing