Employment tribunal awards Millennium & Copthorne Hotels more than £400,000 in costs

An employment tribunal has awarded Millennium & Copthorne Hotels £432,000 for its costs following a claim brought by its former senior vice-president for procurement, which the tribunal held he pursued unreasonably.

M&C’s lawyers Royds Withy King said it is believed to be one of the largest costs awards made in the UK by an employment tribunal.

The award follows claims brought by Chee Hwee Tan in 2017 for unfair dismissal, age discrimination, race discrimination, sex discrimination, victimisation, harassment, whistleblowing and unfair deduction from wages.

The tribunal, in its decision, found Tan to be “duplicitous”, with no evidence of discrimination or harassment. All claims failed and were dismissed.

Jonathon Grech, Millennium & Copthorne’s group senior vice-president and general counsel, said: “Millennium & Copthorne always strives to be an employer of choice. What we cannot ignore is a claim that seeks to make wholly unfounded attack on such values without any merit whatsoever, and we are pleased that the judgment wholly supported our position.

“Spurious claims such as this take up a huge amount of time to deal with, both for ourselves and the employment tribunal system. It is right that an appropriate message has been delivered by the tribunal regarding such disingenuous claims.”

David Israel, a partner in the employment law team at Royds Withy King representing Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, said: “In this instance, the claims and the actions of Mr Tan could not be ignored and his attempts to manipulate the reality of what occurred needed to be defended as the claim sought to attack everything the company stood for. This decision should serve as a warning to employees bringing unfounded and vexatious claims.”

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels owns and manages more than 130 hotels across four brands, 20 of which are in the UK, including the Chelsea Harbour hotel and the Bailey's hotel in London, and the Hard Days Night hotel in Liverpool. The group's Biltmore hotel (pictured) in London’s Mayfair was the first in Europe to join Hilton's luxury LXR Hotels & Resorts brand.