Commentary on provisions of Act Section 3: Sexual harassment of employees: compensation uplift
This section inserts new section 124A into the 2010 Act. It provides for a new remedy in sexual harassment cases in respect of breaches of the employer duty.
	New sections 124A(1) to (3) provide that where an employment tribunal finds that there has been a breach of section 40 of the 2010 Act which involved, to any extent, sexual harassment, the tribunal must consider whether and to what extent the employer has also breached the employer duty to take reasonable steps to prevent the sexual harassment of their employees. If the tribunal finds that the employer duty has been breached, then the tribunal may order an uplift to the compensation awarded in respect of the sexual harassment claim.
	New section 124A(4) provides that the amount of the compensation uplift must reflect the extent to which, in the tribunal’s opinion, the employer duty has been breached. The specific circumstances of each case will be considered as part of this. New subsection (4) also states that the compensation uplift may be no more than 25% of the amount awarded for the sexual harassment claim. A discretionary uplift to compensation is intended to allow the tribunal to take the specific circumstances of each workplace into account and avoid overall awards which may be disproportionate.