Permission needed to use Employment Tribunal documents for injunction

In Notting Hill Genesis v Ali [2020] EWHC 463 (QB), a housing association sought an injunction without notice against a former employee who had retained documents in breach of contract. The documents contained personal data of residents and the holding of them by the ex-employee was potentially a breach of data laws.

Proceedings were pending in the Employment Tribunal and documents disclosed in that were relied upon by the housing association in support of the injunction. However, as the judge was quick to point out, no application had been brought under CPR 31.22, which states:

“A party to whom a document has been disclosed may use the document only for the purpose of the proceedings in which it is disclosed, except where-

a) the document has been read to or by the court, or referred to, at a hearing which has been held in public;

b) the court gives permission; or

c) the party who disclosed the document and the person to whom the document belongs agree.”

Neither (a) nor (c) applied here and the fact that Notting Hill Genesis had not made an application to use the document in the injunction application was a "sufficient obstacle" to the application for it to be refused. The judge was also concerned that he did not have the pleadings or any orders from the Employment Tribunal proceedings and given "the critical link" between those and the current proceedings, he felt he needed "the full picture".

Parallel proceedings

This case is yet another example of the intricacies of managing separate but related proceedings and how issues are commonly overlooked. Events such as data losses, fraud, insolvency and criminal misconduct frequently lead to multiple forms of proceedings, across the civil and criminal courts, the Employment Tribunal and actions by regulators. Understanding how multiple sets of rules apply where proceedings overlap in this way is critical.

We have a dedicated Insights Feature on the issues which arise in parallel proceedings here and a page specifically on managing materials between cases here.