One of the commonly disputed issues in equal pay claims is who is an appropriate comparator for the purposes of deciding if an employer’s pay policy has been applied in a discriminatory fashion.

Recently, a claimant sought to use as a comparator a successor to the post, as opposed to a contemporary. The Employment Appeal Tribunal rejected the use of a successor as a comparator as being too hypothetical. Elias P said that the Equal Pay Act “plainly envisages comparison with someone employed at the same time as the claimant.”