Mrs M Massengo v CPL Aromas Ltd — 2022

The Tribunal found that Mrs M Massengo had been appointed as a trainee perfumer on 3 April 2017 and had been offered a permanent perfumery role only if she successfully completed the Respondent's training programme. By July 2019, Alexandra Kosinski and others considered that she had not met the programme objectives, and on 24 July 2019 she was offered a Quality Control role instead. The Tribunal accepted the Respondent's evidence that the decision not to appoint her as Junior Perfumer was based on performance and readiness, not age.

On 31 July 2019, after a meeting with Nazli Roskin, the Respondent became concerned that the Claimant had forwarded work emails to her personal email account. The Tribunal found that this concern was reasonably generated by what had been discovered and by the Claimant's conduct in the meeting. The subsequent investigation found emails containing confidential formulas, pricing and other proprietary information, including screenshots from the PV system. The Tribunal found that the investigation and suspension were not motivated by age and were prompted by the Respondent's concern about confidentiality and IT security.

The disciplinary process began on 6 August 2019 and continued on 16 August and 9 September 2019, with an appeal heard on 5 November 2019 by Charlotte Purcell. The Tribunal accepted that the Claimant was given the relevant documents during the process, that further investigations were carried out when she raised points, and that the appeal considered her allegations of bullying and her challenge to the IT login evidence. Applying section 98(4) ERA 1996 and the Burchell test, the Tribunal held that the Respondent had an honest belief in misconduct on reasonable grounds after a reasonable investigation, and that dismissal was within the range of reasonable responses.

For wrongful dismissal, the Tribunal found that the Claimant had admitted sending company intellectual property to her private email account, had attempted to delete sent emails, and had breached the Respondent's confidentiality and computer-use policies and the implied term of trust and confidence. It held that this amounted to gross misconduct justifying summary dismissal without notice or PILON. All claims were dismissed and no remedy was awarded.