We’ve Received an ET1. What Do We Do in the First 48 Hours?

The envelope is open on your desk and somebody has already said “this is ridiculous, we’ll fight it.” Possibly you will. But what you do this week shapes the next two years.

Find the deadline and write it down. In Great Britain you respond on an ET3 within 28 days of the date the claim was sent. In Northern Ireland a prescribed response must normally reach the Office of the Industrial Tribunals and Fair Employment Tribunal within the same 28 days. Miss it and you may face a default judgment — liability decided without your evidence.

Stop deleting. Emails, WhatsApp messages, the Teams thread where a manager said the thing you wish they hadn’t. All potentially disclosable. Deleting after a claim arrives is far more damaging than the content ever was.

Do not reply to the claimant. Not to correct them, not to reason with them.

Check your insurance. Legal expenses and employment practices liability policies usually require prompt notification. Late notice can void cover.

Work out what it is actually worth — including the cost of defending. That total is the only honest basis for a commercial decision.

Identify your witnesses while they still work for you. The manager who ran the disciplinary may have resigned by the time this is heard.

Take advice before anyone drafts anything. Grounds of resistance written in-house in a hurry routinely omit limitation and jurisdictional arguments that would have ended the claim. A thin response is a wound that never heals.

Send us the claim and the date it arrived. 0121 256 8043.