Posted: Friday 19 February 2010
Spitting mad…
The on-going furore surrounding Banks and the amount of bonuses they pay to their top brokers, reminded me of an odd employment case involving brokers from a few years ago. The case of Cantor Fitzgerald International v Bird [2002] IRLR 867 involved 3 Cantor Fitzgerald employees resigning without notice and declared their intention of working for a competitor. Cantor Fitzgerald issued legal proceedings claiming that they had breached their contract of employment and attempting to prevent them from taking up their new employment. The 3 former employees argued that attempts by Cantor Fitzgerald to get them to agree to a new remuneration deal by way of alleged intimidation, insults and threats had resulted in Cantor being in breach of contract first so that Cantor could not then rely on the contract to argue that the brokers were in breach. Nothing particularly unusual so far and the sort of argument that arises not infrequently. However, some of the evidence led was a little out of the ordinary. The Court heard evidence of back slapping which resulted in bruising and employees punching each other in the arms. Most oddly though there was evidence about rival employees licking their fingers and wiping their spittle on their fellow employees' face and neck. This was discounted by a Cantor Fitzgerald employee saying “It was just horse-play I should point out that these kinds of incidents are not unusual among brokers.”
All very strange but the serious point that can be taken from the Cantor Fitzgerald case is that if an employer is in breach of contract then, in most cases, they will not then be able to rely on restrictive covenants or notice provisions which may be in the contract of employment which would otherwise remain in force notwithstanding the fact that the employee has left their employment.
