Legal privilege

Case 2: The facts

Mrs Gurdish Webster and Professor Vaseghi brought race discrimination claims. In both cases there were settlement discussions but no settlement was reached. The discussions were "without prejudice" and subject to legal privilege, meaning that they could not be disclosed at the hearing. However, the university vice-chancellor suggested in a newsletter that the cost of litigation could have been used instead for "teaching and research", and that the claims had been accompanied by "unwarranted demands for money". Webster and Vaseghi claimed that this amounted to victimisation and the university conducted a grievance hearing, during which it sought to establish what had been said in relation to compensation.

When the victimisation claims proceeded to a tribunal, the university argued that the claimants could not refer to the grievance report or any of the discussions, arguing that they were "privileged".

The ruling

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) noted that it was the university that had made the issue public by publishing the article. It said the university's conduct throughout the grievance hearing, as part of which it had conducted a "mini trial" to establish what had been said, indicated that it was not concerned with maintaining confidentiality. A tribunal was entitled to imply that it had waived its right to privilege.

The grievance reports referred to the original discussions and both could be used in evidence at a tribunal hearing, the EAT said.

Brunel University & another v Vaseghi & Webster UKEAT/0307/06