The UK Employment Appeal Tribunal has tackled the issue of speaking a language other than English in the workplace. In Kelly v Covance Laboratories Ltd [2015] UKEAT 0186_15_2010, her honour Judge Eady QC held that while it is possible that an instruction not to speak a particular language in the workplace had the potential to amount to an act of discrimination on the race ground, it was open to the employer to show that there might be an explanation for the instruction, other than that it was based on the race of the employee.

Background

Briefly, the facts were as follows: the respondent company was part of a large multinational company, and operated an animal testing laboratory in the UK.