The bundle

The bundle contains all the relevant documents needed to prove the issues in the case. Usually the employer will have been asked by the tribunal to create the bundle of relevant documents. This will include documents such as your employment contract, the staff handbook, correspondence and meeting notes. And these should just be set out chronologically (other than perhaps in discrimination cases where comparators are involved).

What precisely goes into the bundle can be a source of disagreement between the parties — something which the tribunal will expect to be resolved before the hearing. It is obviously important to include anything you wish to refer the tribunal to in the bundle, and you will need to scrutinise the employer’s selection and how clearly the information has been presented. A common mistake is to include a lot of irrelevant information and make the bundle unwieldy. In the Employment Appeal Tribunal, the bundle is limited to 100 pages unless permission for a longer one has been given.

It is worth making extra effort to finalise the bundle as the tribunal will not be impressed if presented with different versions of it, or insufficient copies of a disputed document, for example. This slows the process down and, in extreme circumstances, is the kind of factor that can lead a tribunal to find that the conduct of the case has been unreasonable enough to justify the award of costs.

There is a list explaining commonly used tribunal termsat the end of the booklet.