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KB-2023-003510 - [2025] EWHC 1755 (KB)
Fecha: 11-Jul-2025
JUDGE SPEARMAN
JUDGE SPEARMAN:
I now have to give a ruling on item 8 in the Schedule, which relates to paragraphs 66 to 67 and paragraphs 78 to 80 of the Particulars of Claim.
Paragraph 66 alleges that Mr Shah began building a case against the Claimant using alleged misconduct and/or alleged non-performance factors. This is termed for the purposes of the Particulars of Claim “the Fishing Expedition”, and it is said that it was without any lawful or fair purpose.
Paragraph 67 says that ancillary to that, and for that purpose, there was unlawful access to the Claimant’s personal data, which was processed, in short, unlawfully and was distributed to some solicitors, using Mr Shah's personal e-mail address.
Paragraphs 78 to 80 allege that documents were prepared from 3rd July 2017 onwards containing allegations of misconduct and allegations of non-performance. There was a plan to ambush the Claimant on 8 August 2017 with these allegations although, as things turned out, the plan to ambush the Claimant failed, because the Claimant was not available on 8 August 2017, the alleged date of the “ambush”.
The ground upon which I am invited to strike out these allegations follows what is now becoming a fairly familiar path to tread, namely that they were the subject of consideration by the Employment Tribunal and have been conclusively disposed of.
These allegations arose again in the context of Mr Dowding’s claim in front of the Tribunal for being discriminated against because of his whistleblowing activities, and the fourth bullet point in paragraph 15 of the judgment of the Tribunal reads:
“Mr Shah subjecting the claimant to closer monitoring, for example, Mr Shah demanded e-mails relating to day-to-day matters which came under the claimant's job role and had hitherto been dealt with exclusively by the claimant and carried out a 'fishing exercise' designed with the objective of discrediting the claimant.”
- Heading
- Introduction
- THE PARTIES
- THE EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL PROCEEDINGS
- THESE PROCEEDINGS
- Paragraph 11
- Paragraphs 34-35
- Paragraph 109
- Paragraph 137
- Paragraphs 206-208.”
- ENFORCEMENT PROCEEDINGS
- OTHER PROCEEDINGS
- THE UNLESS ORDER APPLICATION The applicable legal principles
- TCG’s submissions
- Mr Dowding’s case
- TCG’s riposte
- Discussion and conclusions
- JUDGE SPEARMAN
- JUDGE SPEARMAN
- Then at paragraph 40, those grounds of appeal state
- For those reasons, I accept the Defendants’ submissions in relation to this third topic JUDGE SPEARMAN
- JUDGE SPEARMAN
- That is the Tribunal’s summary of Mr Dowding’s case in front of the Tribunal in relation to this topic
- At paragraph 132, the Tribunal move on to the second topic, the so-called NAV/EVO project
- JUDGE SPEARMAN
- JUDGE SPEARMAN
- Paragraph 75 pleads that that request for a meeting was sent by email to both Mr Shah and the Claimant. Paragraph 76 pleads that on 2 August 2017, Mr Shah responded and copied the Claimant in, and tha
- The Tribunal rejected that evidence and concluded in paragraph 26
- Just briefly to complete the narrative of how these matters have unfolded, the Claimant then made an appeal against the rulings of the Tribunal, and in support of that appeal he made an application to
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- DAY 3 JUDGE SPEARMAN
- The announcement that was made is in these terms
- Turning to The Times publication, which the Tribunal expressly dealt with, this records (amongst other things) that
- The Tribunal judgment at paragraph 140 states “contrary to being false or misleading, it was reported that Mr Shah had provided a carefully weighted response, further that he had refused to divulge de
- For those reasons, the material paragraphs of the Particulars of Claim will be struck out JUDGE SPEARMAN
- The judge says at paragraph 122
- As I read that decision, and in accordance with my understanding of the law, it is not the case that a breach of section 172 gives rise to a right of action by a party injured by a breach of contract
- That is my ruling on the issue of the pleaded case against Mr Shah JUDGE SPEARMAN
- The list of factors set out in Ittihadieh v 5-11 Cheyne Gardens RTM Company Ltd & Ors [2017] EWCA Civ. 121 ( “Ittihadieh” ) which are to be taken into account when the Court is striking a balance betw
- First, Mr de Waal reminded me that in the Dawson-Damer v Taylor Wessing [2017] 1 WLR 3255, the Court of Appeal, in reversing the judge below, held, as summarised in the third paragraph of the headnote
- The other principle of law to which Mr de Waal helpfully took me is the often-cited summary of the principles applicable to applications for summary judgment contained in the judgment of Lewison J, as
- When he was addressing me about this personally at an earlier stage of this hearing, Mr Dowding argued that as the litigation related to him, there must be mention of his name in these documents, and
- The Defendants say in paragraph 90 of their skeleton argument that they have “three overarching submissions”. The first is that: “... there is no realistic prospect of the Court concluding that [The C
- The Defendants’ second overarching submission is that there is no realistic prospect of the court exercising its discretion to make an order pursuant to section 167 of the Data Protection Act 2018 on
- The next point is that this is really a quest for documents, and I agree with that The next point is that there is no real value to the data subject, and I agree with that
- Conclusions