Foreign and Commonwealth Office and ors v Bamieh [2019] EWCA Civ 803 (9 May 2019)
This decision from Court of Appeal (England and Wales) provides guidance on the questions employment tribunals must examine when deciding whether they have jurisdiction to entertain whistleblowing claims brought against individual co-workers based outside the UK. The claimant was an international prosecutor employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) who was seconded to work for EULEX Kosovo. In 2014 her contract was not renewed which she believed was due to making protected disclosures. Though it was accepted that there was jurisdiction for a whistleblowing claim against the FCO, the same was not true for a claim against her two co-workers (also seconded to EULEX from FCO) on the basis that there was a closer connection to EU law and Kosovan law, than British law. To this end, the Court held that the strength of connection, not the strength of the protection, was a key question when determining jurisdiction. Lead UK case on jurisdiction see Serco v Lawson (2006) UKHL 3.