Mr C Rajgopaul, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2022

The tribunal held that Mr A Basson was unfairly dismissed by PayProp Holdings Limited. It found that the reason for dismissal was conduct, namely the claimant's failure to disclose his continuing interest in Property24 when the possibility of a sale to Property24 was first floated and then discussed. The tribunal accepted that Mr Johannes van Eeden and the appeal panel genuinely lost confidence in the claimant on that basis, and it rejected the respondent's alternative reliance on poor performance as the reason for dismissal. It also rejected the respondent's broader allegations of manipulative behaviour and underperformance as factually unproven on the evidence before it.

On fairness, the tribunal held that dismissal was substantively fair because the respondent had a genuine belief based on reasonable grounds that the claimant's undisclosed P24 interest was a serious issue at chief executive level and that dismissal was within the band of reasonable responses. It applied the usual unfair dismissal authorities, including Burchell, the band of reasonable responses, and Polkey. However, it found the process to be fundamentally unfair: there was no meaningful pre-dismissal procedure, the claimant was told on 5 December 2019 that his employment would end before any proper hearing, and the Board ratification added nothing in substance because Mr van Eeden was effectively the decision-maker.

The appeal was also found to be seriously flawed. The tribunal held that the allegations were not put to the claimant with sufficient particularity before or during the appeal, the later report contained material he had not been able to address meaningfully, his comments were not taken further into account, and the final ratification again returned to the original decision-maker. On remedy-related findings made at liability stage, the tribunal assessed a 60% chance that he would have been dismissed anyway if a fair process had been followed, found a fair process would have taken about three months, and made a 100% reduction for contributory conduct because the claimant was responsible for the failure to disclose the P24 interest. It declined any further reduction for the later-discovered OLX consultancy agreement.