Compromising relationships with customers justifies dismissal

The Milan Court, Labour Section, with a ruling of 30 April 2015 made a decision in a proceeding started by a manager who challenged a dismissal for just cause following a disciplinary proceeding started by the employer (i.e. an asset management company) for having seriously compromised relationships with investors of the managed investment funds. Initially in his appeal, the manager had asked the judge to declare the dismissal null and void since it was served as a reprisal, to ascertain its injurious nature and sentence the employer to reinstating the manager, payment of his remuneration from the dismissal to reinstatement, as well as compensation for professional damages and non-pecuniary damages. Subordinately, the manager had asked for the employer to be sentenced to payment of the notice and supplementary compensation pursuant to the manager national labour contract applied to the employment. To support his allegations the manager also sustained that the dismissal was unlawful given connection of the disputed events with the prerogatives of the employer’s board of directors (in this case the position of CEO held by the same) and not those of manager. The Company sustained that the claims made against the manager were specific, timely and related to both the prerogatives of the CEO and manager. The Judge rejected the appeal holding that all of the charges against the manager were proven and the seriousness of such did not allow continuation of the employment. The Judge also made a decision regarding the manager’s allegations concerning the involvement of the employer’s Board of Directors’ prerogatives in the disputed facts and not those of the manager. On this point, the Judge sustained that, even if the facts used as a foundation for the various disputes could in part coincide (editor’s note with the office of CEO and position of manager), the same needed to be evaluated solely from an employment law standpoint and thus in relation to the possible injury to the relationship of mutual trust that the disputed conduct had caused.