Mr V Ramaswamy v Ernst & Young Global Ltd and Ernst & Young LLP: 6009082/2025 and Others

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Case No 6009082/2025

Between

Mr V RamaswamyClaimant

Ernst & Young Global Ltd and Ernst & Young LLPRespondent

Before

Employment Judge Fowell

Date 28 November 2025

JUDGMENT

[1]The claims are struck out in their entirety on the basis that they have no reasonable prospect of success, principally on grounds of territorial jurisdiction.

[2]Mr Ramaswamy was not employed by either respondent, which are organisations based in the UK, he was working in India, for an LLP based in India and so has no sufficient connection with the UK.

[3]Further, the most recent of the claims relates to 2021 and is therefore significantly outside the normal time limit for bringing claims.

REASONS

[1]These written reasons are provided at the request of Mr Ramaswamy following oral reasons given earlier today. As usual some editing has taken place for the sake of clarity, and here and there some points are expanded, so these written reasons shall stand as the final version.

[2]These four claims have been consolidated and listed for a hearing today to consider whether they should be struck out for a variety of reasons. The main concern is over territorial jurisdiction. 1 of 7

[3]Mr Ramaswamy was living and working in India at the time of his first claim. He has gone on to add further claims in relation to an offshoot of Ernst & Young in Japan. Broadly speaking, his position is that Ernst & Young is a global organisation, that it has many companies around the world but that the global headquarters is in London, and that as a result he is entitled to pursue claims in the UK.

[4]Each side has prepared their own bundle of documents for this hearing. There is about 460 pages from the respondent and another 250 pages from Mr Ramaswamy. In addition, Mr Ramaswamy has provided a short witness statement. However, as I explained at the outset, applications of this sort are decided on the basis of submissions from each party, taking Mr Ramaswamy’s case at its highest. There was therefore no need for any evidence to be presented, with findings of fact being made.

[5]That is important because Mr Ramaswamy was joining the hearing by video link from his home in India and permission is needed from the Indian authorities to give evidence in proceedings in the UK. That permission has not been obtained so I cannot attempt to finally resolve any disputed points and do not propose to do so. The application

[6]The Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure allow for claims to be struck out in limited circumstances, as follows. 38.—(1) The Tribunal may, on its own initiative or on the application of a party, strike out all or part of a claim, response or reply on any of the following grounds—(a) that it is scandalous or vexatious or has no reasonable prospect of success;

(b) that the manner in which the proceedings have been conducted by or on behalf of Mr Ramaswamy or the respondent (as the case may be) has been scandalous, unreasonable or vexatious; …

[7]The respondent puts its case on the basis of three arguments: the first is that Mr Ramaswamy did not have a contract or any relationship with either of the companies named in the claim forms; secondly that they are well out of time; and thirdly that there is no territorial jurisdiction for the Tribunal to consider them. No contract

[8]The first claim was bought on 17 March 2025 and names two respondents, Ernst & Young Global Limited and Ernst & Young LLP UK. Their case is that the first respondent, the global company, does not have any employees and that the LLP, 2 of 7 which is based in London, is not the entity which employed Mr Ramaswamy. In fact they say there is no “Ernst & Young LLP UK” but there is an Ernst & Young LLP in the UK.

[9]That is not a mere technicality. At page 249 (and unless otherwise mentioned all page references are to the respondents bundle) is a letter to Mr Ramaswamy dated 2 June 2021 confirming his appointment to a position at “EY Global Delivery Services India LLP” a company based in Bangalore. That same company wrote to him on 15 December 2021 [252] requiring him to show cause as to why he should not be dismissed for poor performance and they then wrote to him again on 20 December 2021 [257] to terminate his employment. That company or body therefore appears to have been his employer and nothing was put forward to dispute that position.

[10](While considering these documents, I note that his place at work was also in Bangalore, although he sometimes worked from home in Pune, that his salary was paid in rupees, and that it was subject to the applicable taxes provided by the Income Tax Act 1961, which I take to be an Indian statute.)

[11]This LLP is not the same one named as the second respondent. The address given on the claim forms for them is in London, so again it appears indisputable that this is an entirely separate organisation, based in the UK. Mr Ramaswamy did not dispute those factual points although he maintains that they are not relevant. That is not correct however. For example, his claims include complaints of unfair dismissal, breach of contract, failure to pay holiday pay, unlawful deduction from wages and for a statutory redundancy payment. These can only be brought against an employer, not a sister company or holding company. Claims of discrimination can be brought more widely, for example by job applicants who have been turned down for work on discriminatory grounds. Even then however, the company that turned them down may be liable, not anyone else. Hence, on that basis alone, I have to conclude that the claims against these two respondents have no reasonable prospect of success. Time limits

[12]The second issue relates mainly to time limits. At this point it is necessary to explain that the scope of the claims put forward in the second and subsequent claim forms is wider than in the first. The first was simply concerned with his dismissal by his (Indian) employer in December 2021. That date itself raises an obvious time limit issue, given that the claim was submitted on 17 March 2025, but subsequent claims go back to applications for employment as long ago as 2012. That application was made to an Ernst & Young subsidiary in Japan although they are not named on the claim form. This is consistent with his view 3 of 7 that he is entitled to pursue claims in the UK against Ernst & Young for decisions made by their subsidiaries anywhere in the world.

[13]His CV appears at page 194 and it shows that he has worked in a number of countries. From August 2012 to March 2015 he was working for an Ernst & Young company in Tokyo, then for about a year until May 2016 for another firm of accountants in the UK. After that he worked for “Ernst & Young LLP” from September 2016 to August 2017 in India, then for a German company and then from March 2020 to December 2020 he was working in India again. He agreed that all this was correct. That must have been followed by his last period of employment in Bangalore until December 2021.

[14]Ms Masters helpfully identified the job applications in question in a table in her Opening Note at paragraph 15. There are 15 of them, mainly in relation to applications made in Japan between April 2012 and July 2024. There is no clear narrative about these applications, for example setting out what they were for, or why it is believed that they were turned down on grounds of race or religion or disability as alleged.

[15]Apart from the last three of these applications they all predate the original claim form and could therefore have been raised then. The bigger problem from Mr Ramaswamy’s point of view however is that they are well outside the normal three month time limit for presenting such claims. I attempted to explore with him the reason for these huge delays, in some cases of over a decade, and he said that he had been suffering from a disability which prevented him from bringing claims. However, he was not willing to go any further into those circumstances and I also note that he was in employment for much of this period, in responsible positions.

[16]In those circumstances, the prospect of him being able to satisfy a tribunal in due course that an extension of time should be granted appears to be negligible. Even the last three applications, from June 2023, October 2023 and July 2024, which all relate to applications for work in Japan, are well out of time, and they also suffer from the problems already identified, that they had nothing to do with the two respondents he has chosen to sue, and that they appear to fall outside the territorial jurisdiction of the Tribunal.

[17]I should add that one particular argument put forward in the first claim form is that under Indian law Mr Ramaswamy had three years in which to bring a claim, and so should be allowed the same latitude in the UK. Even three years would not be enough to cover the span of time between his dismissal and the claim form but that argument itself, with its reliance on Indian law, undermines his case on territorial jurisdiction. Territorial jurisdiction 4 of 7

[18]That brings us to the issue of territorial jurisdiction itself. Again, Mr Ramaswamy’s argument is simply one based on the fact that Ernst & Young is a global company and he placed a particular emphasis on their Code of Conduct, which appears at page 56 of his own bundle. It is described as a global code of conduct which applies to “everyone at EY regardless of their individual role, position or practice.” In the small print it says that the term EY refers to “the global organisation and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity.”

[19]He also points to the fact that the email addresses used by employees tends to end in ey.com.

[20]It is not disputed that Ernst & Young Global Limited has a number of member firms, and they clearly operate in many countries. Unfortunately for Mr Ramaswamy, just because they have a common brand, or name or even a common Code of Conduct, does not mean that he can bring such claims in the UK. That view is fundamentally misconceived. Each of those member firms is a separate legal entity. In legal terms they are as separate and distinct as individual people. If someone does you harm you can sue them, but you cannot sue their parents or other members of their family. That is the case even if it is a very united family, with strong ties and a particular moral code. In the same way, if you are dismissed by a company you can sue that company, not their parent company, or a sister company, or anyone else in the family of companies, regardless of any family code of conduct.

[21]Mr Ramaswamy also referred me to s.204 Employment Rights Act 1996, headed “Law governing employment.” It states: “For the purposes of this Act it is immaterial whether the law which (apart from this Act) governs any person’s employment is the law of the United Kingdom, or of a part of the United Kingdom, or not.”

[22]The effect of that provision is not what he suggests. There is a difference between the governing law of a contract and the territorial jurisdiction of the court or tribunal in question. In theory, and occasionally in practise, UK courts can determine disputes in the UK under different governing law. That does not help however in deciding how far the territorial jurisdiction of the Act extends.

[23]The starting point on that question is the decision of the House of Lords in Lawson v Serco Ltd

[2006] ICR 250

. Lord Hoffman’s judgment opened with a general statement of principle: “6. The general principle of construction is of course, that legislation is prima facie territorial. The United Kingdom rarely purports to legislate for the whole world. Some international crimes, like torture, are an exception. 5 of 7 But usually such an exorbitant exercise of legislative power would be both ineffectual and contrary to the comity of Nations.”

[24]This concept of the comity of nations involves the understanding that sovereign states treat each other with respect and do not attempt to interfere in the exercise of their jurisdiction within their own territory. Construing a statute involves attempting to assess the intention of parliament, and it follows that in the absence of an express statement that an Act is intended to have worldwide effect, such as in the case of some international crimes or, more recently, bribery, it is unlikely that such a wide scope was intended.

[25]Lord Hoffman went on to consider the sorts of situations in which parliament may have intended that result. The first examples concerned peripatetic employees such as airline pilots, who work in various places, and where the key question is whether they can be said to be “based” in Great Britain. Another concerned those posted overseas by a British company, such as a foreign correspondent on a newspaper, where it is necessary to show a sufficient connection with the UK - a connection strong enough to displace the usual expectation that any claim against their employer has to be pursued in the jurisdiction in which they are working. Finally, there are exceptional cases, such as those working in a British enclave overseas such as a military base. These examples were not intended to be exclusive but all of them, it should be noted, concern an employer based in the UK.

[26]Since then the exceptions have been explored further. There have been very many decisions at a high level on this question, but the position was summarised by Lord Justice Underhill in The British Council v Jeﬀery

[2019] ICR 929

as follows (having described the position as set out above): (4) However, there will be exceptional cases where there are factors connecting the employment to Great Britain, and British employment law, which pull suﬃciently strongly in the opposite direction to overcome the territorial pull of the place of work and justify the conclusion that Parliament must have intended the employment to be governed by British employment legislation. I will refer to the question whether that is so in any given case as “the suﬃcient connection question”.

[27]I was not referred to any cases in this area but the fact is there have been no decided cases where that sufficient connection test has been met, where someone is working abroad under the law of that country. It appears clear from the offer letter itself that the governing law of the contract is Indian and that would be the overwhelming presumption in any contract of employment where the employer and employee were based in India. In fact, for the reasons already given, that has not appear to be any connection with the UK at all here. 6 of 7

[28]I remind myself of the importance of caution before striking out any claim of discrimination, but the essential flaws in the claim are clear and cannot be cured by any amendment or clarification. Each of these issues in itself presents a formidable obstacle to the claims. Taken together, they appear insurmountable. So, for all of the above reasons, these claims are struck out as having no reasonable prospects of success.

[29]It is not necessary to go on to consider whether the way in which they have been pursued has been scandalous, unreasonable or vexatious. I am also aware that Mr Ramaswamy has brought six other claims against the same respondents since these four claims. Those claims have been stayed depending the outcome of this hearing and reserved to the Regional Employment Judge for a decision as to whether they will be allowed to proceed.