Question on settlement
Thanks for all the information posted here already.
England & Wales
A solicitor has advised that in terms of settlement “one year is good, eighteen months is very good and less than 2% of people achieve two years or more.”
A lot of the cases I’ve read through here are around average UK salary levels. I’m interested to know if settlement amounts are any different based on:
Financial Services in the city of London, FCA regulated.
Very hostile working environment for three years.
Race discrimination by the CEO witnessed and confirmed by HR. Said CEO was eventually suspended then dismissed for this and various other conduct breaches. This was not reported to the FCA as it should have been.
Subsequent whistleblow relating to directors’ breaches of fiduciary duty, conflicts of interest, breaches of treating customers fairly and breaches of consumer duty.
This resulted in detriment issued by the new CEO involving stripping of duties and communications. This was done with no formal process and via out of hours emails with no right of reply and never speaking to the employee.
The detriments were issued (proven by DSAR) by one of the conflicted directors emailing the CEO and telling him to put a stop to the issues being raised.
Also said director had been tipped off by the Chief Risk Officer that the whistleblow had happened and who it was. There is written evidence of this.
Grievance process is meant to be done asap and ideally within ten working days. It took nearly three months finding no wrongdoing by the business. The outcome was obviously drafted to be as legally protective as possible.
Whistleblower has been on paid special for over six months. No attempt made to facilitate a return to work.
An OH report was commissioned three months ago and nothing has been done to facilitate a return to work and the report was not acknowledged at all. OH report said due to whistleblow and grievance process the employee is suffering depression, likely to last at least twelve months and likely to meet the definition of disability under the equality act.
ET1 filed citing s.47B detriment arising from protected disclosures, race discrimination, s.13 and s.26 on grounds of religious belief, s.27 victimisation under Equality Act, personal injury (psychiatric harm).
The new CEO is still in role but the conflicted directors have left. One was dismissed and the other was pensioned off. The other issues raised in the whistleblow around treating customers fairly and consumer duty have subsequently been resolved as they were factual.
Employee salary is circa £230k, 10% pension, variable bonus but circa £50k to £100k. Total annual comp is circa £320k. Six months contractual notice period. Employee has been at the company for one decade and has never had any performance or disciplinary issues.
Obviously there are significant ongoing employment costs, the return to work risk, external legal costs, the management distraction and issues around bad publicity and potential FCA ramifications if it goes to full hearing. The industry press love hearings like these and scandalise them.
What would a reasonable and or realistic settlement amount be?
Thank you in advance.