GQ Employment Law says that City staff who are disgruntled with their bonus often choose to bring bonus claims in the employment tribunal as opposed to the High Court because there is a much lower risk that they will have to pay for the bank’s legal costs of the dispute if they lose. 

GQ Employment Law says that City staff often try to bring a bonus claim as part of a discrimination or whistleblowing case in order to access an employment tribunal without a cap on the cap on the compensation that can be awarded. Jon Gilligan continues, “Bankers will try wherever possible to frame their claim as a discrimination or whistleblowing cases so they can use an employment tribunal and give themselves a better chance of winning. City staff will have more at stake if they take a case to the High Court. They will also need to prove that the bank didn’t exercise its discretion reasonably, which can be very difficult to do. GQ Employment Law adds that employees who are promised a bonus that they then don’t receive will have the strongest legal case against an employer. “Banks and hedge funds that may have discussed a bonus of a certain value with an employee or had an informal conversation about what they might expect, may leave themselves open to a legal claim from an employee if their bonus is substantially less than discussed.”