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Suing Your Employer Lesson from Emilio Botin Grupo Santander price
By: Simon King

The intense hardship and stress that you can expect to experience in suing your employer is demonstrated by the high-profile UK legal case Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006), where the Employment Tribunal made a finding of race discrimination, which following Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group's refusal to comply with the Tribunal's order to reinstate Mr Chagger, led to the record £2.8 million compensation award. Abbey Santander (the UK high street bank due to be re-branded as Santander share price, and being part of the enormous Emilio Botin Banco Santander Central Hispano group BSCH) dismissed Mr Chagger from employment in 2006, giving compulsory redundancy as the reason. Mr Chagger, however, believed that the actual reason behind the termination of his employment was race discrimination. Balbinder Chagger, of Indian origin, worked as a Trading Risk Controller for Abbey Grupo Santander price, earned around £100,000 a year, and reported into Nigel Hopkins.

An aggravated employee could decide to challenge his employer. Usually, the challenge will be initiated as a formal grievance. The employee raises the formal grievance against the employer in the form of a formal grievance letter. The employer is responsible for investigating the grievance letter and deciding the outcome. Thus, the employer is given the first opportunity to handle the employment dispute and to bring it to a satisfactory end. Unfortunately, employers will rarely admit their wrong doings and decide in favour of the employee; instead, the grievance procedure will be used to influence the employee into accepting that he is wrong and dropping his challenge. The Employment Tribunal investigating the Santander Abbey National case found that Mr Chagger had tried to resolve the issues around his termination directly with Mr Hopkins and Santander Abbey National and that his grievances were simply dismissed out of hand.

An employee that remains dissatisfied with the employer's ruling on the grievance has no option but pursue legal action in order to continue his attempt to bring the employer to account. Mr Chagger eventually proceeded to initiate legal action against both Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins on the grounds of unfair dismissal and racial discrimination, thereby, escalating the issues to the Employment Tribunal for independent determination.

The employer (particularly an enormous and powerful organisation, like a major financial institution) will be a formidable opponent for most employees. The employer will be advantaged by possessing vastly superior levels of resources in finance, experience in handling disputes, legal expertise and ample time and people to dedicate to the employee's challenge. The employee, on the other hand, will be comparatively poor in financial resources, experience in handling disputes, and legal expertise. Additionally, he will be hampered by the usual personal circumstances and commitments all humans face (such as making ends meet and managing relationships), and struggle to find the time necessary to deal with bringing the employer to account while he also goes about discharging his obligation of mitigating his loss emanating from the wrong he has suffered. He may also be scuppered by the low financial value of his pursuit (the potential financial compensation for his loss minus the significant legal costs which are unrecoverable). If all that isn't enough to discourage him, he may finally be discouraged by the prospect of being shunned by prospective employers for having exposed an employer to legal proceedings (even if his case was genuine and had been successful).

A powerful employer is likely to exercise its superiority ruthlessly, without any remorse, with the view to scupper the employee and to coerce him into giving up his challenge for as little value as possible. The employee can expect a campaign of tactics designed to deplete his resources, such as tactics to escalate his legal costs, cause delays and frustration, increase his stress levels, and so on. For an aggravated employee to persevere with bringing such a formidable opponent to account requires him to possess an amazing level of inner-strength and resolve, as well as lots of disposable cash.

The employer may possess heavy advantages and be ruthless, but a genuine case supported by appropriate evidence can be successful, as demonstrated by Mr Chagger who satisfied the Employment Tribunal that both Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had unfairly dismissed him and racially discriminated against him. In order to remedy the wrongs Santander Abbey had committed, the Employment Tribunal ordered Abbey National Santander to reinstate Mr Chagger. Abbey Santander, however, refused to do as the Employment Tribunal ordered. The Employment Tribunal was dissatisfied with the reasons Santander Abbey gave for its refusal to comply with the reinstatement order.

Even though Mr Chagger's challenge was genuine and successful, and he appeared to have no other option but to take legal action, he believed that he was unable to find alternative employment because other prospective employers shunned him for having taken legal action against an employer. The Employment Tribunal eventually awarded £2.8 million to compensate him for his loss.

Even when the employee's case is successful, the employer can appeal against the Employment Tribunal's rulings and, thus, hold back the payment of the compensation award, whilst continuing to prolong the employee's hardship and stress by exposing him to further legal costs, which he must fund from his own resources, and further eroding the financial value of his case. In 2008, Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins appealed against the Employment Tribunal's rulings of race discrimination and compensation. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) hearing the appeals upheld the original Employment Tribunal's ruling that Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins had discriminated against Mr Chagger in his dismissal on the grounds of race. However, it overturned the compensation award and remitted it to the original Employment Tribunal for reconsideration.

If the issue of liability (the wrong committed by the employer) is finalised, the employer can continue to be ruthless in its handling of the issue of quantum (the compensation award). The Chagger v Abbey Santander case did not stop at the EAT stage. The case was appealed to the Court of Appeal (the second highest court in the UK). According to the Court of Appeal's List of Hearings, the appeal was heard on 7 and 8 July 2009. The Court of Appeal's judgement of the appeal was not available at the time of writing this article. The 11KWB set of barristers' chambers, who represented Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins in the appeal, had reported that the Court of Appeal hearing was to be only about quantum (not liability also). That would appear to suggest that the wrong of race discrimination committed by Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins was finalised by the EAT (it upheld the original Employment Tribunal's decision that Santander Abbey National and Mr Hopkins had discriminated against Mr Chagger), and that Mr Chagger had appealed against the EAT's ruling to remit the compensation award to the Employment Tribunal stage for reconsideration.

Clearly, bringing a powerful employer to account is far from easy; it is highly risky and fraught with hardship and stress, possibly over a period of many years. The employee may do well to have regard for the financial value of his pursuit and to make decisions with reference to it; if the pursuit is based purely on principles (however admirable they may be) and/or spite, then he is very likely to lose a lot of money.

Article Source: http://www.excitingdestiny.com/articles

Santander share & Hopkins v Chagger (2008) and Grievances and Court Structure demonstrated by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander

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