And speaking of stickers brings me to the case of Wolfe v Taka Mayfair Ltd 2026, in which a sacked sommelier stuck with the ET and then the EAT for his claim that a reasonable request to be accompanied at his dismissal meeting was denied him.

Mr Wolfe was employed by Taka Mayfair Ltd as Head Sommelier/Manager from 21 December 2022 to 21 January 2023. Following the end of one of his shifts, and without any advance warning, the two owners of the restaurant held a face-to-face meeting with him. They did not explain the purpose of the meeting or indicate what might happen as a result. At the end of the meeting, Mr Wolfe was dismissed.

Mr Wolfe subsequently brought a claim against the employer in the Employment Tribunal. He later sought to amend his claim to include a complaint that the employer had breached his statutory right to be accompanied under section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999.

The ET highlighted that there are two gateway requirements which must be satisfied for the statutory right to be accompanied to arise. First, there must be an invitation to attend a disciplinary or grievance hearing. Secondly, the employee must make a request to be accompanied at that hearing. Mr Wolfe accepted that he had not asked the restaurant owners to allow him to be accompanied at the meeting.

On that basis, the ET rejected his application to amend his claim, concluding that a claim under section 10 had no reasonable prospects of success.

Mr Wolfe subsequently appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. He argued that, because the employer had failed to inform him in advance of the nature or purpose of the meeting, and because he did not appreciate during the meeting that he might be dismissed until the point at which he was actually dismissed, he had been denied the opportunity to exercise his statutory right under section 10 or at least had not been given a reasonable opportunity to do so.

Mr Wolfe argued that once he had been dismissed without any prior warning that dismissal was a possibility, it was too late for him to request a companion. He further argued that it could not be correct for an employer to avoid, or attempt to avoid, the statutory right to be accompanied being triggered simply by not informing the employee of the nature of the meeting or its potential outcome. He further argued that such an approach would undermine the purpose of the statutory right and create a significant loophole in legislation intended to address the inherent imbalance of power between an employer and an employee at a disciplinary or grievance hearing.

Mr Wolfe also emphasised that a worker should not have to “second-guess” an employer or risk putting themselves “above the parapet” and potentially provoking an adverse response, in circumstances where it is not clear that they have a right to be accompanied.

The EAT upheld the ET’s decision. It clarified that its role was to apply the legislation as enacted, rather than to interpret it according to how it might be argued that it ought to operate. The starting point was therefore the express wording of the statute.

Under section 10, the statutory right to be accompanied arises only where the relevant conditions are satisfied. As one of those conditions is that the worker makes a reasonable request to be accompanied, the EAT agreed that the ET had correctly concluded that, where a worker does not make such a request, they cannot bring a complaint that the employer has failed to comply with its obligations under section 10.

The EAT also rejected Mr Wolfe’s argument that, because the worker is required to act “reasonably” when making a request to be accompanied, the employer should likewise be subject to a general obligation to act reasonably. In particular, Mr Wolfe argued that it would be unreasonable for an employer to withhold from a worker information about the nature of a meeting or its potential outcomes.

The EAT rejected this argument, noting that Parliament had not imposed, within the section 10 regime, any general obligation on employers to act reasonably which could support such an interpretation. Once section 10(1) is satisfied, the employer’s obligations are those, and only those, expressly set out in the remainder of the section.

Finally, the EAT highlighted that the relevant provision was not ambiguous. The legislation requires a worker to make a reasonable request to be accompanied, which necessarily means that a request must actually be made. There was therefore no scope for the EAT to interpret the provision in a way that removed that requirement.

Accordingly, because Mr Wolfe had not requested to be accompanied at the meeting, the statutory right to be accompanied under section 10 had not been engaged, and his proposed amendment to his ET claim was correctly rejected.

This case is important because it clarifies that a worker must make a reasonable request to be accompanied before the statutory right under section 10 is engaged. However, it remains best practice to give workers prior notice of disciplinary and grievance hearings and to inform them of their right to be accompanied. While failing to do so may not, in itself, give rise to a section 10 claim, clear communication can help ensure that disciplinary processes are handled fairly and transparently.