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Whistleblowing: emails to different individuals taken together may amount to a qualifying disclosure

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    Norbrook Laboratories (GB) Ltd v Shaw EAT/0150/13 (1 other report)

    • Whistleblowing: Protected disclosure can be made up of several communications taken together

      Date:
      30 June 2014

      In Norbrook Laboratories (GB) Ltd v Shaw EAT/0150/13, the EAT held that a worker had made a protected disclosure within the meaning of s.43B(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, by warning of the danger of sales representatives being required to drive in heavy snow. This was a disclosure of information tending to show a risk to health and safety and went beyond a mere assertion or expression of opinion. The fact that the disclosure was made through three separate emails to two different people did not alter the fact that a protected disclosure had been made.

Norbrook Laboratories (GB) Ltd v Shaw EAT/0150/13

whistleblowing | protected disclosures | automatic unfair dismissal and detriment

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) agreed with an employment tribunal that emails sent by the claimant taken together were capable of amounting to qualifying disclosures, even though the emails were sent to different individuals in different departments.