Facts

Mr Bathgate was employed for many years as a Chief Officer on board various ships. He took voluntary redundancy on 31 January 2017. Under a settlement agreement, his employer agreed to make various enhanced redundancy and other payments in return for Mr Bathgate settling all claims.

One of the agreed payments was to be calculated by reference to a collective agreement between the National Maritime Agency and Nautilus Trade Union. That collective agreement explicitly said that it only applied to officers under the age of 61. Mr Bathgate had reached the age of 61 but was nonetheless under the impression that he would receive the payment.

Over a month after Mr Bathgate’s redundancy, the employer decided that it was not going to make any payment under the collective agreement, because there was no need to do so for officers aged 61 or above. It is not entirely clear if this was a change of mind on the employer’s part, but the upshot was that Mr Bathgate did not receive one of the payments he was expecting under the settlement agreement.

Mr Bathgate claimed that the decision not to make the payment amounted to age discrimination. The Employment Tribunal (ET) decided that he couldn’t proceed with his claim because he had waived any age discrimination claims under the settlement agreement.  Mr Bathgate appealed.

Decision

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) disagreed with the ET’s decision.

Mr Bathgate had signed away his right to sue for age discrimination before he knew whether he had a claim or not. In the EAT’s view, settlement agreements could not settle such future claims that had not arisen at the date of the agreement.  This meant that his claim for age discrimination could go ahead.

The judgment is available here.

Bathgate v Technip UK Ltd & Ors [2022] EAT 155, 7 October 2022