The importance of compliance with legal, regulatory, social, ethical and other standards faced by businesses is highlighted by the high-profile UK legal case Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006), where an Employment Tribunal made a ruling of racial discrimination and, following Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group’s refusal to comply with the Tribunal’s order to reinstate Mr Chagger, ordered Abbey Santander shares to pay the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation award. Abbey Santander Group (the UK bank soon to be re-branded as Santander shares price, and being a part of the behemoth Emilio Botin Banco Santander Central Hispano Group – BSCH) dismissed Balbinder Chagger from employment in 2006, asserting compulsory redundancy as the reason. Mr Chagger, on the other hand, believed that the actual reason behind the termination of his employment was race discrimination. Mr Chagger was of Indian origin. He worked for Emilio Botin Abbey Santander price in the role of Trading Risk Controller. He earned approximately 100,000 per annum. He reported into Nigel Hopkins.
In the UK, the Financial Services sector is highly regulated. Financial institutions face an abundance of standards to comply with concerning their numerous stakeholders (regulators, authorities, the public, employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, shareholders, investors, and others). Compliance with all of the standards is part and parcel of conducting business in the UK Financial Services sector; financial institutions need to devote sufficient resources and energies to compliance and to compliance risk management. Compliance failures, that are either detected by regulators during inspections or reported by aggrieved parties to the appropriate jurisdictions, can result in extremely high-profile consequences, as shown by Chagger v Abbey National & Hopkins (2006); the Employment Tribunal recorded an abundance of compliance issues and failures committed by Emilio Botin Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins, some of which are outlined below.
Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with the UK statutory redundancy dismissal procedure; it had failed to notify Mr Chagger in writing of the circumstances leading it to contemplate dismissing him and asking him to a meeting.
Emilio Botin Abbey Grupo Santander had failed to comply with the guidance on good practices regarding Equal Opportunity training recommended by the UK statutory Code of Practice on Racial Policy in Employment. Mr Chagger had made efforts to address the issues surrounding his dismissal directly with Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins, through the company’s grievance and appeals procedures. However, Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had not provided any Equal Opportunity training to the managers it had allocated to consider Mr Chagger’s issues; Mr Chagger’s issues were simply dismissed out of hand by each and every manager. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group had also failed to comply with the guidance on good practices concerning monitoring recommended by the UK statutory Code of Practice on Racial Policy in Employment. The Tribunal found an abundance of monitoring failures, in addition to the failures to give serious consideration to allegations of race discrimination and to investigate them promptly.
Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with the Tribunal’s order to reinstate Mr Chagger (ordered to remedy the unlawful wrongful act of racial discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins). In the UK, reinstatement is regarded as the primary and preferred remedy for an unfair dismissal, because it enables the aggrieved employee to continue to enjoy both the mental satisfaction and the economic benefits of his role in the future. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander refused to reinstate Mr Chagger and the Employment Tribunal was dissatisfied with the reasons it gave for refusing to comply.
Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with the Race Relations Act (Questions and Replies) Order 1977. The Tribunal found that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander’s reply to Mr Chagger’s race discrimination questionnaire was evasive, and that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed in answering Mr Chagger’s questions.
Both Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had failed to comply with UK law on employment. The Employment Rights Act 1996 requires the selection of an employee for dismissal in a compulsory redundancy situation to be fair. Compulsory redundancy selection criteria must be applied fairly; they must be both objective and measurable. The Employment Tribunal found, however, that the compulsory redundancy selection criteria Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had applied were both highly subjective and un-measurable.
Mr Hopkins had failed to comply with the expected behaviours of a reasonable manager. He was highly criticised by the Employment Tribunal for the manner in which he had applied the compulsory redundancy selection criteria to Mr Chagger. As an example, the Employment Tribunal found that he had scored Mr Chagger down for getting on with work and being self-reliant, a characteristic that the Tribunal thought that reasonable managers might well consider to be an asset for an employee in Mr Chagger’s highly paid and highly responsible position, and score him more highly for.
Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with reasonable good practices and safeguard controls expected in compulsory redundancy situations; that of ensuring more than one manager is involved in the assessing and scoring of each of the employees in the redundancy pool (a control to safeguard the fairness of the scoring and to reduce the risks of bias). The Tribunal found, however, that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander did not implement this simple control mechanism. Alongside other significant factors, Mr Hopkins was single-handedly able to recommend to Abbey Santander’s management to dismiss one of the two Trading Risk Controllers that he managed (Mr Chagger being one), was single-handedly able to put to Mr Chagger an offer to take up voluntary redundancy (Mr Chagger refused Mr Hopkins offer, and no such offer was ever put to the other Trading Risk Controller), was single-handedly able to conduct the compulsory redundancy scoring and assessment of the two employees in the redundancy pool, and was single-handedly able to reduce Mr Chagger’s scores to ensure that he would be the employee who would be selected for dismissal.
Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins both had failed to comply with the UK discrimination law; the Tribunal ruled that they had both racially discriminated against Mr Chagger.
Emilio Botin Abbey Santander highlights the significance of compliance risk and its potentially very high-profile consequences on an institution’s reputation. The profile continued beyond the Employment Tribunal stage for Abbey Santander. Mr Hopkins and Emilio Botin Abbey Santander s appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against the original Employment Tribunal’s ruling of racial discrimination and against the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation award. In 2008, the EAT upheld the original Tribunal’s ruling that both Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger. However, the EAT accepted Abbey Santander’s appeal on the compensation award and remitted it to the original Tribunal for reconsideration. The case was appealed and escalated to the Court of Appeal (UK’s second highest court). The Court of Appeal’s List of Hearings showed the appeal was heard on 7/8 July 2009. The Court’s transcript of the hearing and judgement were not available when writing this article. The 11KBW set of barristers’ chambers, who represented Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins, had reported that the Court of Appeal hearing was to be about compensation only (i.e., not about racial discrimination also). That would appear to imply that the wrongful act of race discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Nigel Hopkins was finalised by the EAT when it upheld the original Tribunal’s decision that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger, and that Mr Chagger had appealed against the EAT’s decision to remit the compensation award to the Employment Tribunal stage for reconsideration.