Jeffery v Givaudan UK: EAT confirms settlement does not end right to written reasons

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled that an employment judge erred in refusing to provide written reasons for a remedy decision on the basis that the parties had subsequently settled the claim, finding no provision in the tribunal rules that allows a settlement to override an existing request for reasons.

In Gary Jeffery v Givaudan UK Ltd [2026] EAT 114, Her Honour Judge Joffe allowed the claimant's appeal against a decision of Employment Judge Corrigan, who had declined to provide written reasons explaining her refusal to order Mr Jeffery's reinstatement or re-engagement following a successful unfair dismissal claim.

Mr Jeffery had succeeded in his claim in a liability judgement handed down in January 2024. At a subsequent remedy hearing spanning June and July 2024, the employment judge refused to order reinstatement or re-engagement and gave her reasons orally, appending the standard notice that written reasons would not follow unless requested within fourteen days under rule 62 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013. Mr Jeffery made that request on 2 August 2024. Around six weeks later, the parties reached a COT3 settlement through ACAS, and his solicitors notified the tribunal that no further remedy hearing was required. In November 2024, the tribunal informed the parties that the settlement superseded the outstanding request and that written reasons would therefore not be provided. A subsequent application to vary that decision was refused in January 2025.

Before the EAT, counsel for Mr Jeffery, who appeared alone as Givaudan chose not to participate in the appeal, argued that rule 62 conferred no discretion to withhold reasons once validly requested, and that nothing in the rules linked settlement to the loss of that entitlement. Judge Joffe agreed, holding that the rules provide specific mechanisms by which a claim comes to an end, principally withdrawal under rule 51, and that settlement by COT3 is not one of them.

The judgement considered whether the solicitors' notification to the tribunal might itself be construed as a withdrawal, which could have raised a separate question about whether withdrawal extinguishes an existing request for reasons. Drawing on the established line of authority requiring any withdrawal to be clear, unambiguous and unequivocal, including Segor v Goodrich Actuation Systems Ltd and Campbell v OCS Group Ltd, Judge Joffe found that the carefully drafted notification, prepared by experienced advisers who would have been alive to the consequences of withdrawal, could not be read as one. She noted that settlement agreements in the tribunal customarily provide expressly for withdrawal where that is intended, and the absence of such wording here supported the opposite conclusion.

The judgement also addressed the broader purpose of written reasons, drawing on Meek v City of Birmingham District Council, Flannery v Halifax Estate Agencies Ltd and English v Emery Reimbold & Strick Ltd, observing that reasons serve not only to facilitate appeals but to help parties understand why they won or lost, a function unaffected by a party's decision not to pursue further litigation. Judge Joffe rejected the suggestion that the appeal had become academic, noting that Mr Jeffery retained a legitimate interest in understanding the tribunal's reasoning even absent any prospect of a further appeal.

Applying the principles in Jafri v Lincoln College, the EAT substituted its own decision rather than remitting the matter, ruling that Employment Judge Corrigan must now provide the written reasons originally requested.