Following a rule 3(10) hearing before HHJ Tayler, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has granted the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia permission to proceed with its appeal from decisions of the Employment Tribunal (appeal nos EA-2024-000487-AT and EA-2024-001173-AT). The date for the appeal hearing is yet to be listed.
This appeal raises important issues of law and procedure, including whether the Employment Tribunal can ever proceed to conduct a hearing on the merits of a claim where State Immunity is a live issue, and consideration of when the Employment Appeal Tribunal ought to expedite appeal proceedings.
The decisions under appeal are the Employment Tribunal’s refusal to stay proceedings and its decision to uphold some of an Embassy employee’s claims under the Equality Act 2010. Those Employment Tribunal decisions were made in circumstances where Saudi Arabia had made no representations at the hearing in respect of liability and where there was an extant application for permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court on issues regarding the applicability of State Immunity. Readers following this case will recall that the UK Supreme Court granted Saudi Arabia permission to appeal and handed down judgment earlier this year in Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia (Cultural Bureau) v Costantine [2025] 1 WLR 1207, [2025] ICR 768 (see our previous post here).
Mohinderpal Sethi KC and Joel Wallace appeared on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, instructed by RPC LLP.
