Former banking director settles victimization claim at the Employment Tribunal

Redmans Solicitors
October 2, 2013

A sacked banking director has settled her Employment Tribunal case against Commerzbank in a claim reportedly worth millions of pounds.

Latifa Bouabdillah, 33, submitted an Employment Tribunal claim against Commerzbank last year after she was fired from her job shortly after joining the bank as head of product engineering. The reason for her dismissal was contended to be the fact that details of an Employment Tribunal claim for sex discrimination and equal pay against her former employer, Deutsche Bank, had been published in the press and Commerzbank had taken exception to this, stating that she had failed to disclose the claim when she had applied to join. She was told that this failure to disclosure the information had caused a “breakdown of trust” and that she had exposed the bank to reputational damage and was therefore dismissed.

Ms Bouabdillah instructed employment law solicitors and brought a claim for victimization, sex discrimination and unfair dismissal against Commerzbank. The matter came to the Employment Tribunal earlier this year, with the Tribunal upholding Ms Bouabdillah’s claim for victimization but rejecting her claim for sex discrimination. The Employment Tribunal held that Commerzbank was “uncomfortable” with the coverage and “decided not to continue with the relationship because this was not the sort of person they wanted to employ”. The Tribunal did not rule on compensation in the matter at the time and arranged for a further two-day remedies hearing to take place at the London Central Employment Tribunal.

The matter was due to return to the Tribunal last week but according to news reports was settled after four-and-a-half hours of private negotiations between the parties. There was no further comment from the parties on the details of the settlement negotiations, although this would not be unusual as the terms of settlement agreements normally including what is known as a “confidentiality clause” prohibiting disclosure of details of the agreement.

Chris Hadrill, a settlement agreement solicitor at Redmans, commented on the settling of the case: “Both parties have clearly decide it is in their respective interests that this case be settled instead of it progressing to the Employment Tribunal remedies hearing – there’s always a litigation risk to a hearing. It’s probably the case – given the nature of settlement agreements – that the actual settlement figure will never be known.”

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