Judgment approved by the court for handing down Mr J Logo v Payone Gmbh and others Dinner 19 June 2019 33. The Employment Tribunal made the following findings of fact: FR leaving event 250. Mr Risch had left the company in 2019 to move to Worldline but, when the latter brought Ingenico in 2020, he transferred back to R1. During the interim, he was invited back for a leaving event which took place sometime after he had formally left. 251. When the claimant started his claim he alleged (para.16.8 - A:51) that Mr Risch attended a dinner in Frankfurt with the claimant and “made a crude ‘joke’ over dinner, the punchline of which involved a black man having sexual intercourse with an animal.” This was the allegation responded to (A:68 at para 3.14.7) where it was simply denied and the respondents stated that “the claimant has failed to particularize this allegation and it is, in any event, out of time”. It was covered in a limited way in Mr Risch’s para.16 where he recalled the dinner but did not recall speaking to the claimant making any jokes to him or making a joke of that kind. 252. The claimant’s statement evidence about this incident was contained in para 164 onwards. He describes the table and who was sitting in various spaces including where Mr Risch was sitting. He describes much but not all of the conversation being in German and then an incident where Mr Risch was conversing in German with a named colleague and then burst out in loud laughter. The claimant then alleges that “I looked over to him and stated words to the effect of ‘that must have been funny’ he stated the joke would be difficult to translate in English, but it was about “black man fucking a rabbit”. The claimant stated that he believed that this was something Mr Risch would genuinely be thought to be amusing but that the colleague looked alarmed and apologized later. This is a considerable amount of extra detail compared with the original allegation. 253. When Mr Risch gave evidence, he stated that he wished to make an additional comment about this allegation. He denied that there had been a joke on his part with regards to what the claimant was referring to. He stated that, since making his witness statement, he has had another conversation with the colleague named by the claimant and, although Mr Risch himself had not recalled the conversation, the colleague had reminded him of it. Mr Risch evidence now was that at the dinner he had recounted to the colleague in question that in his new employment he had met a former colleague of them both who had told him about having to review adult material as part of a due diligence process. He says that it was this that he was relating to the colleague at the dinner party “it was no joke at all, but I was telling this colleague about the really bad stuff that she had to face when onboarding the merchants… well it was bad stuff like people having sex with animals for example and that is what is referred to in this paragraph.” 254. When cross examined about it he said “I cannot [imagine] that this has ended up in bursting laughter. More shocking.” He did however accept that the words alleged by the claimant were stated that night in German or in English. © EAT 2025 Page 14 [2025] EAT 95