The emergency remedy for specified automatically unfair dismissals, with its seven-day time limit which cannot be extended. 'Likely' means a pretty good chance of success, a significantly higher standard than the balance of probabilities: Taplin v C Shippam Ltd; Ministry of Justice v Sarfraz. The hearing is an expeditious, impressionistic assessment on paper rather than a fact-finding exercise (Al Qasimi v Robinson), so the existence of factual disputes cannot itself dispose of the application: Duffy v BXTR 3 Ltd t/a House of Gods [2026] EAT 119. Joint Presidential Guidance has been in force since 22 June 2026.
Interim Relief; test; the claimant must show a 'pretty good chance' of success.
Effective date of termination; summary dismissal in breach of contract. A summary dismissal fixes the statutory EDT at the date of communication even where the contract required notice: the dismissal may be wrongful, but the employee cannot keep the contract alive for statutory-EDT purposes by declining to accept the repudiation. The EDT is a statutory construct serving the certainty of tribunal time limits, decoupled from the contractual validity of the termination. The answer, at statutory level, to any argument that a contractual requirement of written notice prevents an oral dismissal from starting the clock. Endorsed post-Geys by the CA in Rabess v London Fire (2016) and the EAT in Meaker v Cyxtera (2023): the elective theory does not disturb it.
Interim relief; whistleblowing; the threshold. The claimant, a knowledge transfer partner on a two-year fixed term, said the University had driven him to resign by treatment caused by his protected disclosures and sought continuation of his contract pending trial. The tribunal refused interim relief and Underhill J (President), sitting alone on a rule 3.10 hearing, dismissed the appeal on 10 November 2009. There are 'good reasons of policy' for setting the test comparatively high: if relief is granted the respondent is irretrievably prejudiced, because it must treat the contract as continuing and pay the claimant until the conclusion of proceedings, and that is not a consequence to be imposed lightly. The 'pretty good chance' gloss in Taplin v C Shippam Ltd was not disturbed by SCA Packaging Ltd v Boyle. The procedure is summary and does not always require oral evidence; the tribunal need only indicate the essential gist of its reasoning.
Unfair dismissal; effective date of termination; dismissal by letter. The Supreme Court held that where dismissal is communicated by letter the effective date of termination under s.97 ERA 1996 is the date the employee reads the letter or has had a reasonable opportunity of reading it, not the date it was posted or delivered [32], [41]. Section 97 is a statutory construct to be read in the light of the protection of employees, not by conventional contract law rules on communication [35]-[37]; constructive knowledge has no place [36]. Whether there was a reasonable opportunity takes account of the employee's conduct, so an employee who deliberately avoids the letter may be fixed with its contents [31]-[32]. The legislation gives three months, not three months less a day or two [42]. Brown v Southall & Knight and McMaster v Manchester Airport approved.
Interim relief; ss.128-129 ERA 1996; meaning of 'likely'. To order interim relief in a s.103A dismissal case the judge must find it 'likely' — a significantly higher degree of likelihood than the balance of probabilities, something nearer to certainty (Taplin v C Shippam Ltd [1978] ICR 1068 considered) — that the tribunal will find each element: a qualifying disclosure was made, the claimant believed it tended to show a relevant failure, that belief was reasonable, the disclosure was made in good faith, and it was the principal reason for dismissal. The order was overturned because the judge failed to consider the reasonableness of the claimant's belief, which was not likely to be established.
Interim relief; s.161 TULRCA; on an application for interim relief following dismissal for trade union activities, the tribunal makes a summary assessment of whether the claim has a 'pretty good chance' of success on the material before it; the interim relief order continues the employee's remuneration pending determination, with the statutory regime providing for variation or discharge if circumstances change.
Effective date of termination; summary dismissal; effect of Geys. Firefighter summarily dismissed for gross misconduct; an internal appeal months later downgraded the finding to misconduct and paid six weeks' notice pay; he argued the EDT moved to the end of that notional notice period, or (post-Geys) to when he accepted the repudiation. CA (Laws LJ): the EDT is a question of fact; it did not shift by reason of anything on the internal appeal; Gisda Cyf is 'wholly consonant' with Robert Cort, which leaves s.97 as an autonomous statutory question 'unchallenged by the conventional or general principles of law of contract'; Geys was 'wholly concerned' with common-law contractual questions and does not bear on the statutory EDT. The CA-level resolution of the Geys/Robert Cort tension, applied by the EAT in Meaker v Cyxtera. NB the CA's reasoning was anchored in the employee's understanding ('could only have understood' he was dismissed on the earlier date) and the absence of unjust disadvantage - both potentially distinguishable where the employer's own formal documents pointed the employee to a later date.
Dismissal; communication; objective test. Whether an employer has terminated the contract is tested objectively: how would the employer's conduct or words be understood by the objective observer, given what was known to the employee and the relevant circumstances? Dismissal must be communicated, whether by words or conduct, but the communication need not be express; it may be implied (failure to pay, issuing a P45), provided it is something of which the employee was aware. Applied in Cosmeceuticals v Parkin, where the EAT asked whether the employer had communicated an 'unequivocal' intention to terminate 'in circumstances where there were no other contraindications' - the framework under which an employer's surrounding formal documents (notice, payroll, P45) bear on whether an unequivocal summary dismissal was communicated at all.
Interim relief; s.129(1) ERA 1996; disputed facts are the material for the assessment, not a reason to decline it. A hotel worker dismissed eighteen days into his employment said he had been dismissed for disclosing that fire escape doors were being left open and building security compromised; the respondent denied any disclosure was made and said the decision to dismiss had been taken during probation six days before it was communicated. The tribunal refused interim relief because there were fundamental issues of fact and credibility in dispute and, 'for that reason', the pretty good chance test could not be met. Recorder Fraser Butlin KC held that was an error of law: identifying what is in dispute is not the same exercise as assessing how the dispute looks on the available material, and s.129(1) requires the expeditious summary assessment described in Al Qasimi v Robinson. Paragraph 39 of the June 2026 Presidential Guidance on interim relief was expressly endorsed, but it predicts an outcome rather than licensing the tribunal to skip the assessment. Reasons were separately inadequate for failing to address a transcript of a recording made immediately after the dismissal, which was important evidence needing to be weighed. The perversity ground failed: the recording was not the smoking gun contended for, and a tribunal which reached no conclusion cannot have reached a perverse one (Yeboah v Crofton). Substitution barred by Jafri v Lincoln College because the EAT would itself have had to make the missing assessment; remitted to the same tribunal.
Interim relief; s.103A ERA 1996; the nature of the exercise. HHJ Eady QC held that the tribunal's obligation on an interim relief application is to carry out a summary assessment of the material before it, applying Taplin v C Shippam Ltd, and that the 'likely' test bites on every element the tribunal will have to determine at the final hearing, not merely the reason for dismissal. Where several communications are relied on as disclosures the tribunal may treat them as a linked chain and take an overall view rather than testing each separately against s.43B. At paragraph 59: the application must be determined expeditiously and on a summary basis, the judge doing the best that can be done with such material as the parties have deployed at short notice, and taking care to avoid findings which would tie the hands of the tribunal charged with the merits. The task is 'very much an impressionistic one': to form a view as to how the matter looks, and to explain that conclusion 'not in an over-formulistic way but giving the essential gist' of the reasoning. Appeal allowed in part: the tribunal had not asked whether the claimant believed her disclosures were in the public interest (Chesterton Global Ltd v Nurmohamed applied), and had failed to address an illegality point squarely raised before it.
Interim relief; adequacy of reasons; proportionate preparation; remission. HHJ David Richardson held that an application for interim relief is a brief urgent hearing at which the employment judge must make a broad assessment. 'Likely' does not simply mean more likely than not: it connotes a significantly higher degree of likelihood, and the question is whether the claimant has established a pretty good chance of succeeding at the final hearing (Taplin v C Shippam Ltd and Ministry of Justice v Sarfraz applied). Reasons must enable the parties to see why they won or lost and an appellate court to see that the law was correctly applied, though rule 62(4) permits them to be very short. Where the reasons fail, the EAT cannot substitute its own view because some factual assessment would be necessary and Jafri v Lincoln College forbids it; the matter must be remitted. Appeal allowed, order set aside, remitted to a differently constituted tribunal. The EAT urged parties to keep preparation proportionate: such hearings are intended to be short, and are broad assessments by a judge 'who cannot be expected to grapple with vast quantities of material', a passage adopted at paragraph 25 of the 2026 Presidential Guidance.
Effective date of termination; summary dismissal; s.97(1)(b) ERA 1996. A managing director was told orally on 1 September that her contract was at an end; the employer then purported to place her on garden leave and served notice expiring 23 October, its own later documents pointing to the October date. The EAT held the EDT was 1 September: an unambiguous oral communication that the contract is being brought to an end is a summary dismissal, and notice purportedly given after a summary dismissal does not move the EDT to the end of the notice period. The employer's subsequent paperwork cannot rewrite the legal event. Critical for interim relief, where s.128(2) allows seven days from the EDT with no power to extend: count from the meeting, not the letter.