Ms N Tahri Hassani

Case Summary

This EAT appeal concerned a claimant employed by BMCE Bank of Africa and seconded to Bank of Africa UK PLC as Head of HR. She brought claims including whistleblowing detriment, sex and race discrimination, and automatically unfair dismissal. The Tribunal found her contract transferred to the respondent employer on 8 January 2021 and that she suffered various detriments. The EAT held the contract transfer conclusion was wrong in law and set aside the automatically unfair dismissal complaint; it also remitted the whistleblowing detriment claims for reconsideration.

The Tribunal's conclusion that the employment contract transferred from BMCE to the first respondent on 8 January 2021 was wrong in law because it was based on the erroneous premise that an employer's identity under an employment contract could be changed without reference to the employee or consent of all parties. Any change would have required express or implied novation consented to by the claimant, BMCE, and the first respondent, which never occurred.

Use these claim-type pages to compare this decision with other published tribunal cases, outcome patterns, and visible award data.

• •Whether the claimant's employment contract transferred from BMCE to the first respondent on 8 January 2021
• •Whether the claimant was subjected to detriment for making protected disclosures
• •Whether certain disclosures qualified as protected disclosures under section 43B ERA
• •Causation between protected disclosures and alleged detriments
• •Whether placement on garden leave amounted to detriment

Judgment approved by the court for handing down Bank of Africa UK PLC & Ors. v Hassani © EAT 2026 Page 1 [2026] EAT 27 Neutral Citation Number: [2026] EAT 27 Case No: EA-2023-000502-DXA EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL Rolls Building Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1NL Date: 11 February 2026 Before: THE HON. LORD FAIRLEY, PRESIDENT - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Between: (1) BANK OF AFRICA UNITED KINGDOM PLC (2) MR HOUSSAM EL HAK MORSSI BARAKAT (3) MR RALPH SNEDDEN Appellants -and- MS N TAHRI HASSANI Respondent - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mr Matthew Sheridan (instructed by Doyle Clayton) for the Appellants The Respondent appeared in person Hearing dates: 28-30 October 2025 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - JUDGMENT Judgment approved by the court for handing down Bank of Africa UK PLC & Ors. v Hassani © EAT 2026 Page 2 [2026] EAT 27 SUMMARY Whistleblowing; contracts of employment The claimant was employed by the first respondent’s parent company, BMCE Bank of Africa (“BMCE”) from March 2013. In September 2016, she was seconded by BMCE to work for the first respondent in London in the role of Head of Human Resources. The secondment arrangement was regulated by a Secondment Agreement and Secondment Letter, both of which stated that the claimant remained an employee of BMCE during the secondment. The secondment was brought to an end in 2021, and the claimant returned to a position with BMCE. She brought complaints against the first respondent and two of its employees of sex discrimination, race discrimination, harassment, victimisation, whistleblowing detriment, ordinary unfair dismissal and automatically unfair dismissal for the reason of whistleblowing. The Tribunal found that the claimant’s employment had transferred to the first respondent on 8 January 2021 and that she had thereafter been subjected to various detr…