Senior IBMer hit with £290k demand from Big Blue in separate case as unfair dismissal claim rolls on

A former IBM general manager who was posted to the United Arab Emirates is being sued by the company for £290,000 after filing an employment tribunal case claiming unfair dismissal. In its particulars of claim lodged on 10 February 2021 and recently made available by the court, Big Blue claimed that former Middle East GM …

[Roger Kynaston]

An excellent look for a recruiter

Come work for us. We'll sue for money we have paid you. Remind me not to work for them. Irregardless of the merits or not of this case.

Icon because they are clearly toxic.

[Ace2]

Re: An excellent look for a recruiter

Even if they “win” for £300K, it’s cost them 10X at least in reputation damage. Boggles the mind that they would even file.

[lglethal]

Re: An excellent look for a recruiter

Wait... IBM have a reputation to damage? Since when?

[VBF]

Re: An excellent look for a recruiter

Reputation? It's Broke Mate

7 years ago I was contracting alongside some IBM long-term "Staffers" in UK. They were all looking to leave without losing accrued benefits or being sued for some sort of breach of contract!

After having had several lunchtime chats 3 of them went contract - I was so glad to be able to offer them advice on that score.:-)

And going back about 15 years, i was on a contract "managed" by IBM...I thought then that I was so glad I didn't actually work for I'm a Big Muppet!!

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

Re: An excellent look for a recruiter

Agreed. I contracted for them between 2000 - 2004 on a number of ERP projects. And whilst I did quite enjoy my time there, I was definitely glad I wasn't a "staffer".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: An excellent look for a recruiter

"... liable to repay £60,024 in housing allowances and £62,793.36 in company-guaranteed housing rental payments."

So nothing they say is guaranteed. Noted.

[Phones Sheridan]

These 2 paragraphs appear to be contradictory? Clarification suggested.

..The High Court claim is paused until early October, when Miah's unfair dismissal claim in the Employment Tribunal is due to be heard.

..The former IBMer had applied to have the high court case stayed (paused) until the Employment Tribunal proceedings were ended, but the High Court decided not to grant that application – and handed Miah a £12,000 costs bill for doing so.

[anothercynic]

It's only paused until the Tribunal case is *heard*, not when it is *concluded* (as Miah requested).

So the time starts ticking again when the tribunal meets and discusses the case.

[Phones Sheridan]

But what doesn't make sense is the £12K fees. Fees for high court are £10K ( https://www.compactlaw.co.uk/compactlaw-admin/court-fees.html ). Here we have a defendant making a reasonable request to not waste one courts time by having 2 concurrent cases, where the outcome of one must affect the outcome of the other, and the court declines, but then charges him more than the cost court fees anyway despite him being a defendant. Some info is missing.

[X5-332960073452]

VAT maybe?

[Pascal Monett]

"IBM has claimed he is 'liable' "

I have to say that, as far as employment claims from IBM are concerned, by default IBM does not have much credibility in its claims.

It really should stop trying to cheat its salespeople, for starters.

[trevorde]

Only one reason to work for IBM

Big payoff when you sue them for unfair dismissal. Other than that, nothing.

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Itsy Bitsy Manglers.

That's all.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are a bit sneaky like this.

There are other "deals" IBM offer where you have to remain an employee for a set term before said employee can benefit. If you leave the company (regardless of it being voluntary or involuntary) then the agreement is nullified and you get nothing.

If only the C-Suite tossers had their bonus paid in the same way (have to remain employed for a couple of years and show their worth before they get it)....

[MiguelC]

This is quite different, those agreements usually mean you must stay for some predefined period before being due the payment. In this case, the employee had already been paid and Big Bad Blue is asking for the return of the money, although it was Big Bad Blue's decision to terminate the contract. It sounds even worse than when they renege due commissions...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to be defending IBM here, but their *claim* is that even though the money was paid up front, it was conditional on him staying two years, and he signed off on that. He didn't, so he had to repay it. It was more like an advance than a payment.

(This kind of thing is not at all unusual at all levels, for example it used to be common at some consulting firms that entry level hires had to agree to pay back the value of their training if they quit within a certain time (I don't know if that still exists).)

HOWEVER - I'm not saying that IBM is right. I'm just saying, that's their position. And who knows what the implications are if he was unfairly dismissed. Throw in the fact that it's another jurisdiction with their own employment laws* and lets face it, none of us know the legal situation (as opposed to the ethical one).

*Fun fact: In Switzerland you can't be fired on a day you are out sick. Many years ago a GM in Europe at HP (IIRC) tried to exploit this by retroactively claiming he had been out sick the day HP canned him, and fought his firing for over two years. I have no idea how it ended for him...

[Lost In Clouds of Data]

Unless I misread...

...Big Blue sacked him - he didn't quit.

Ergo the head scratching on how this is even legal.

[Sandtitz]

I hate to be defending IBM here, but their *claim* is that even though the money was paid up front, it was conditional on him staying two years, and he signed off on that. He didn't, so he had to repay it. It was more like an advance than a payment.

I don't think that defence is going to work.

"We'll sign you for a two-year contract with this big lump sum paid in advance. You're required to pay it all back if you don't do the full time."

- Fire him at day 729.

[Uncle Ron]

Visible

Here's the thing: What IBM does is so much more visible, and it is so much more cautious than other companies, because it is so damned BIG. Whatever it does makes headlines all over and makes them appear to be the bad guys whatever the merits or facts of the case are. I worked for IBM for 42 years and found the company to be *very* sensitive to legal grounding and PR issues, and *very* careful, before filing law suits and taking employee actions. That said, IBM is not a pushover. If it thinks it's right, it will go ahead. IBM is not any more or less greedy or unethical than any other big company, and probably less so than your average small startup or NY real estate developer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Visible

The thing is that IBM isn't big anymore. It's market cap is smaller than ServiceNow. It's not much bigger than Atlassian. It's a rounding error vs. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple. They are small-blue but think they are still the once dominant IT company of 20-30 years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Visible

IBM:

Number of employees: 345,900 (2020)

Revenue: 77.87 billion USD (2020)

Market Cap: 122.55B

Atlassian:

Number of employees: 6,433 (2021)

Revenue: 1.6 billion USD (2020)

Market Cap: 103.19B

Service Now:

Number of employees: 13,096 (2020)

Revenue: 4.519 billion USD (2020)

Market Cap: 131.58B

In terms of future potential I can see how Atlassian and Service Now beat out IBM.

But still, the market cap of Atlassian and Service Now (and lots of other companies), is vastly bloated with respect to earnings. It's only that high because the US govt provides easy credit to financial companies to invest in the markets whenever there is a hint of a downturn. That outwieghts any relative glory.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Visible

IBM's stock has been dead in the water for years... no wonder Buffet jumped ship when he did and bought Apple.

Let's see how big IBM is (revenue and # of people) after they've divested themselves to their cough syrup services company Kyndryl....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Visible

What your problem with "average small startups"? Still sore over getting beaten up by that pugly upstart Microsoft?

[FozzyBear]

I think we can exclude IBM as an IT related company now. Honestly, they are comparable to legal houses that are IP or patent holding companies. Suing everyone that crosses their path

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

I'm not so sure, but I guess so in certain areas - as those issues are the ones that primarily generate the negative headlines. But IBM Research & Labs have always done, and are still quietly doing very relevant and interesting work in the background.

[MarkET]

Wording

I'd drop the word "execution" from his CV. Just my opinion.

[Dave Null]

"Hey, we have some budget we need to bank for the next FY"

"You can't do that, it's not permitted under our business rules"

"Just give the sales guys the special bonus, then next FY we'll can them and make them return the money"

[Cliffwilliams44]

Was he sacked for cause? If not and he was terminated as a staff reduction why on earth would he have to pay this back? I wholeheartedly understand agreements that say "If you voluntarily leave before x months you must repay $X" but if your terminated as a matter of staff reduction then no, there is no way I would sign such an agreement. Even if you are sacked for cause, it would have to be something fairly serious. Just being a poor employee should't cause a payback clause to come into play.