in deciding whether an employment tribunal has jurisdiction in an unfair dismissal case brought by an employee who works partly overseas the critical question is whether the employee "ordinarily works outside Great Britain" (ERA 1996 s.196(2)) and therefore regard must be had to the whole contemplated period of the contract.

This case involved a sex discrimination claim as well as the unfair dismissal claim noted above. Until 2005 it was generally thought that the judgment supported the proposition that a different test was appropriate in sex (and race) discrimination cases. It was thought that because the anti-discrimination Acts refer to the place where the work is "wholly" rather than "ordinarily" carried out (SDA 1975.s10(1) and RRA 1976 s.8(1)) jurisdiction in sex and race discrimination cases depended solely on where the employee was working during the period in which the alleged discrimination took place. However the Court of Appeal held in 2005 that "Carver did not ..... hold that [the question of whether a tribunal had jurisdiction in a sex or race discrimination case] was to be answered solely by reference to the period of time during which the alleged discrimination occurred, disregarding the whole of the earlier history of his employment at establishments of the employer in Great Britain" (see Saggar v. Ministry of Defence CA 2005 EWCA Civ 413 on 27th April 2005, [2005] ICR 1073).

For main notes see Unfair dismissal/employments not having unfair dismissal rights/work ordinarily outside Gt Britain and Sex discrimination/overseas employment .