Disclosure related to an employment claim should have been completed by May 2025
A disclosure delay by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP has resulted in the US litigation firm being slapped with a costs order amounting to £8,371 from the UK employment tribunal, reported the Law Society Gazette.
The disclosure was related to claims brought by former employee Luke Decker against Quinn Emanuel and designated member Paul Baker for disability discrimination, public interest disclosure, and unfair dismissal. The firm was supposed to have completed the disclosure in May 2025 per the tribunal’s order.
Quinn Emanuel and Baker said certain material up for disclosure was privileged and had to be issued conditionally. Nine days before the deadline, Quinn Emanuel and Baker requested an extension from Decker’s solicitors; Decker offered a shorter extension to which the firm and Baker did not agree.
In October 2025, Quinn Emanuel filed an application for Decker’s claim to be struck out because he had not complied with orders and did not actively pursue the claim. As a result, the disclosure issue came to light. Both parties argued about related matters in a series of letters.
A preliminary hearing was held before employment judge David Hughes, where Decker submitted that Quinn Emanuel and Baker displayed unreasonable behavior through “wholesale” non-disclosure, the filing of the strikeout application, and their “needlessly repetitive approach to correspondence,” per a statement published by the Gazette.
Quinn Emanuel claimed in its submission that it had suggested a discussion on safeguards around privilege issues. The strikeout application was reportedly made only after Decker did not engage for a long period.
Hughes ruled that the strikeout attempts were excessive and unreasonable since Quinn Emanuel knew it had violated a disclosure order. He noted that the firm did not bring up privilege concerns at the time of the order’s issuance and had waited to raise it.
“To sit on something that should have been evident, for a period of months, was also unreasonable,” Hughes said in a statement published by the Gazette.
During a London Central tribunal hearing in November, the parties conceded that they had both violated the disclosure order. Decker had sought £20,000 in costs in his claim, but due to his non-compliance, the costs were reduced.
Quinn Emanuel and Baker were jointly and severally ordered to pay £8,371 to cover the November hearing’s expenses.
