The European Court of Justice has held that an employer is not obliged to provide an unsuccessful job applicant with information on the successful candidate, although a failure to do so could lead to an inference of discrimination in a subsequent tribunal claim.
This Northern Ireland industrial tribunal decision is a good example of how an employer can indirectly discriminate against a female job applicant by making it a requirement to have a number of years' relevant experience within a narrow time frame, something that is more difficult for women who have been raising a family to achieve.
In Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v Beck EAT/0141/10, the EAT held that the employment tribunal was entitled to find that, notwithstanding the inherently unlikely nature of an age discrimination claim on the facts, the employer's deliberate use of the word "younger" in a person specification, contrary to expert advice, was sufficient to shift the burden of proof to the employer.