UK’s Equity to appeal Spotlight judgement in court

UK actors’ union Equity has won permission to appeal a recent High Court judgment, which rejected its call for casting platform Spotlight to be regulated.

A date for the hearing has not yet been set. 

“This case is about fair access to an industry which is notorious for placing financial and other barriers on entry,” said Equity’s general secretary Paul W Fleming.

”Spotlight is a casting platform and casting is the entertainment profession’s term for hiring labour and we want to see this for what it is: an employment agency which should be regulated, including its fees to work-seekers.

The dispute between the two UK bodies has raged on for two years, with Equity calling for Spotlight to be considered an employment agency by law and criticising its charging of a fee regardless of whether an actor using its service finds work.

A Spotlight spokesperson told Screen: ”We are disappointed that Equity has been granted permission to appeal the recent High Court judgment in Spotlight’s favour. From the outset, Spotlight has called for constructive dialogue with the union, rather than the further expenditure of actors’ subscriptions and union membership fees on legal costs. This remains our preferred resolution.”

Grounds for appeal

Court of Appeal judge Rabinder Singh said the main ground on which the appeal was granted “concerns whether the Judge was wrong to conclude that the Respondent is not an ’employment agency’ within the meaning of the relevant legislation. In my view, the Appellants’ submissions on that issue have a real prospect of success. The issue, which is of some general importance, does not appear to have been the subject of a previous decision by the Court of Appeal and should be considered by this Court.”

In a decision handed down in London’s High Court in September, judge Catherine Howells dismissed Equity’s claim Spotlight should be classed as an “employment agency”. She confirmed the directory is “a marketing tool” and “a number of steps away from a service for the purpose of finding persons employment. The ambit and role of Spotlight’s directory is narrow”.

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