Mr R Ramchandani v Citibank N.A — 2020

At the final remedy hearing, the tribunal accepted that Mr R Ramchandani had been unfairly dismissed because Citibank N.A had not followed a fair procedure, but it also found that the Respondent's dismissal decision was made by Mr Forese and Mr Ybarra after consultation with Mr Feig and Mr Prasad, and that the reason for dismissal was conduct. The tribunal rejected the suggestion that the dismissal was driven by the press or that the Respondent lacked a conduct reason; it found that the dismissal letter accurately reflected the Respondent's genuine belief that the chats were wholly unacceptable and had broken trust and confidence.

The tribunal examined the claimant's Bloomberg chats against his contract, handbook, Code of Conduct and the NIPS code, and held that he knew, or should reasonably have known, that it was not market colour to disclose information about specific deals, client identities, or non-aggregated trading information except for legitimate matching purposes. It found culpable conduct in five termination chats dated 28 April 2010, 26 August 2010, 8 September 2010, 20 December 2011 and 22 February 2012. The later post-termination chats did not materially add to the case against him, because the tribunal considered many of them ambiguous and not sufficient, on their own, to support further findings of misconduct.

On remedy, the tribunal refused re-engagement and recorded that the application for reinstatement had been withdrawn. It held that re-engagement was not practicable because trust and confidence had broken down on both sides: the claimant continued to say he had been scapegoated, while the Respondent genuinely and rationally believed the chats showed serious misconduct. The tribunal also accepted that, if re-engaged in a regulated role, he could not be certified as fit and proper under the relevant FCA regime. It concluded that there was a 100% chance he would have been fairly dismissed by 15 October 2014 if a fair process had been followed, so the compensatory award would have been fully subject to Polkey, but it nevertheless applied a 25% uplift for unreasonable failure to comply with the ACAS Code and reduced both the basic and compensatory awards by 75% for contributory fault.

The s.92 Employment Rights Act 1996 complaint failed. The tribunal found that the claimant's 20 January 2014 letters sought disclosure of the communications and a correction of the media record, not written reasons for dismissal, and that even if an oral request had been made on 10 January 2014 the written dismissal letter sent that day gave reasons that were neither inadequate nor untrue.