Employment tribunals can make awards for costs against a party who has acted “vexatiously, abusively, disruptively, or otherwise unreasonably” or if the claim is “misconceived”. This could be where a party has failed to comply with tribunal orders, behaved badly at the hearing or brought what is obviously a hopeless case.
In extreme cases, applications can be made to ban individuals who habitually bring vexatious claims against employers from bringing further employment tribunal claims. For example, restriction of proceedings orders were made in Her Majesty's Attorney General v Groves (19 claims in five years) and Her Majesty's Attorney General v Iteshi (30 employment cases in four years).