Mr A J Finegan v Ainsty Timber Marketing Limited — 2024

The tribunal found that the claimant's employment terms had been varied over time from a 2019 contract at £45,000, through later increases to £100,000, and then, from the April/August 2022 arrangement, to £25,000 salary with a £10,000 employer pension contribution, a £750 monthly car allowance, 27 days' holiday plus bank holidays, and 6 months' notice. It rejected the claimant's reliance on a later April 2021 variation document that suggested a longer notice period, finding that document did not reflect any genuine agreement between the parties.

On dismissal, the tribunal accepted that the respondent's dismissal reason was a breakdown of trust and confidence based on the claimant's conduct in relation to the TotalFD claim for £250,000, his refusal to sign the letter of clarification, his opposition to payment of the solicitor's invoice, and his email demanding that his wife be employed on the same terms as Mrs Whamond. It found that Mr Whamond and Mr Dawson genuinely believed the claimant was not acting in the company's best interests, that this amounted to some other substantial reason justifying dismissal of a finance director, and that summary dismissal without prior representations or an appeal was within the band of reasonable responses in the circumstances. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore dismissed.

The tribunal also held that the claimant's conduct, taken cumulatively, amounted to a repudiatory breach of contract so the respondent was entitled to dismiss without notice. That meant the notice pay breach of contract claim failed as well. The only monetary award was on the unlawful deduction from wages claim: the tribunal found unauthorised deductions for June and July 2023 in relation to pension contributions, car allowance, and one day's holiday, and ordered the respondent to pay £1,918.44 gross. The respondent's director's loan counterclaim was dismissed for want of jurisdiction because the loan was not a contract connected with employment.