Company wanted to take back $200k redundancy after argument in the hotel lobby

NZ Herald

23 Apr, 2020 07:17 PM3 mins to read

A company wants to take back a former employee's $200,000 redundancy payment after an dispute in a hotel lobby. Photo / 123rf

A New Zealand company wants to take back a former employee's $200,000 redundancy payment after an argument in a hotel lobby.

Darryl Grauman was employed by Westcon Group NZ Ltd until he was let go in April 2019.

The company agreed to pay Grauman close to $220,000 which would cover redundancy compensation, compensation for hurt and humiliation, any unpaid salary including holiday pay, unpaid expenses and payment of the Executive Compensation Plan (ECP) for the fiscal year 2019 (FY19).

However, issues with the agreement arose when Grauman was holidaying in Fiji with his family and coincidentally bumped into the company's financial controller Shailesh Prasad.

Prasad told the Employment Relations Authority he saw Grauman in the hotel lobby, approached him, and then the ex-employee said he was taking Westcon to court for underpaying him.

However, Grauman disputes that saying Prasad asked him about life outside Westcon to which he responded by saying it was great but it was a pity that there was litigation in progress.

Grauman told the authority that when Prasad asked for more details he simply referred him to his managers for details.

The company claimed that disparaging was breach of the agreement and therefore they did not need to pay what they'd initially agreed to.

The authority declined the company's application for compliance orders and penalties.

"I am satisfied that while Mr Grauman was ill-advised to make any comment about litigation his comments were not disparaging and there has been no breach of the
agreement.

"The statement made by Mr Grauman was factual and was said to a person who was responsible for ensuring he was paid any monies owing to him," Vicki Campbell, member of the Employment Relations Authority, said in the decision document.