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Case studies

T v Lloyds Register

Our client, recognised by every government and non-governmental organisation in the United Nations as the world expert in her field, had been employed by this leading classification society since 1990.  However, despite her established pre-eminence in her field, our client was kept on a lower grades and received lower salary than male colleagues performing work of equal value. 

Our client raised her concerns internally, but the issue of pay disparity remained unresolved.  One of our client’s male colleagues almost 50% higher pay than she did.  When she raised this with her line manager, our client was told that she did ‘not need a higher salary because she had a husband’.

At a later date, our client was told by her manager that he was surprised to learn that one of her male colleagues was on a higher grade than she was.  Despite this, she received no parity in pay or status.  Our client continued to push for the issue to be addressed, and eventually, in 2001, a job evaluation exercise was planned.  However, our client became disheartened when a number of irregularities in the process became evident.

We took up our client’s claim and issued proceedings on her behalf.  Through skilful negotiation and meticulous preparation of financial documents, we were able to achieve settlement for our client, for the full amount of her pay disparity, without going to court.

Bodman v API Group PLC

Our client was Group Accountant and subsequently Group Financial Controller at a manufacturing organisation with its Head Office in the North-West. She discovered that she received substantially lower pay than her successor in the first role and her predecessor in the second role. In fact, once benefits and bonus were taken into account, our client learned that she earned £50,000 less annually for performing what appeared to be exactly the same job. The claim was unusual because she was comparing herself with male employees who did the same job as she did but at different times.

We won her claim at the Employment Tribunal, with the backing of the Equal Opportunities Commission. The tribunal found that she had been engaged in "like work" with both of her male comparators even though they had not carried out those roles at the same time as our client did them. It rejected a range of explanations given by the employer for why there was a difference in pay. A key factor was that the employer could not demonstrate that it had a transparent system of determining pay. The amount of compensation has yet to be determined.

The case is important because it demonstrates that a woman can seek equal pay even if there is no man perfoming a comparable job at the same time - comparison with the pay of men who precede or succeed her in the same role is possible. In practice of course a claim based on a successor will still have to be brought within 6 months of the date employment ends.