What is an ET3 in Employment Tribunal?

So once you’ve submitted your Tribunal claim, the ET1 document, the next thing you’ll get back is the ET3 from your employer. What is that?

The ET3 is basically your employer’s side of events, and a lot of people get upset when they see the ET3. They tell us that their employer is misrepresenting the facts, or they’re outright lying, or they’re in some way twisting the truth, and they ask us, “Do I have to reply back to this?”.

The short answer is ‘no’. You’re not required to reply back to the ET3 there and in the moment. The next stage of the process will be a preliminary hearing, where you go and you decide what the next steps in the case are.

(Onscreen text: *typically – sometimes they skip straight to scheduling a hearing if it’s a simple case).

Now, a preliminary hearing might be to decide whether or not the case should go forward, but it’s often just scheduling out when the next dates are. So before you have to do any rebuttals, or anything like that, you’ll have plenty of time to prepare.