LRD guides and handbook May 2019

Law at Work 2019 - the trade union guide to employment law

Chapter 14

Tribunal time limits and Acas Early Conciliation 





[ch 14: pages 473-474]

Tribunal time limits are affected by Acas EC in the following way: The Acas EC Notification Form must be submitted within the normal time limit for a tribunal claim (usually three months). This “stops the clock” on that time period. The clock will restart, that is, time will start running again, as soon as Acas supplies the EC Certificate to the claimant. If, at that stage, there is less than one month left in which to issue the tribunal claim, the claimant gets a minimum of one month to take this step (see Luton Borough Council v Haque [2018] UKEAT/0180/17/JOJ). If the deadline is missed, the claim will be out of time and is likely to be dismissed. 





It is important to take care only to apply for Acas EC once in the same dispute. If Acas mistakenly issues a second EC certificate for the same matter, the second certificate has no legal effect, including no effect on the limitation period. It will be as if it was never issued (HMRC v Garau [2017] UKEAT/0348/16/2403). 




The rules allow an employer to apply for Acas EC where a potential claimant has not already submitted an Acas EC Notification Form. The most important point to note here is that if an employer initiates Acas EC, there is no stopping the clock and no extension of the time limit. Although a claimant does not have to submit an Acas EC Notification Form if they can prove that their employer has already started Acas EC, in reality it is always better to be on the safe side and to submit a Form during the time period. 



Take care not to apply for Acas EC prematurely. Take advice if in doubt. If the Acas EC Notification Form is submitted to Acas before any claim has come into existence (for example, before the dismissal in a claim of unfair or discriminatory dismissal), there will be no extension of time in which to bring the claim. Here is a good example:


Mr Garau submitted his Acas EC Notification Form before his dismissal. At that point, he had no claims for unfair or discriminatory dismissal, so the three-month time limit for bringing those claims had not yet started to run. As a result, submitting the Form did not trigger an extension of time to bring the claims. Garau should have brought his claims within three months (less one day) of his dismissal date. Since he did not, his claims were out of time.



HMRC v Garau [2017]/ 0348/16/LA 



www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2017/0348_16_2403.html

Acas EC also applies to claims against insolvent employers. (See also Chapter 11: Redundancy payments and insolvency).