A senior executive who aired concerns about the financial health of her employer has won an age and sex discrimination claim after her CEO described her as menopausal.
Ms Thomas worked as chief financial officer at fintech company Bibimoney Global, and in February 2022 had set out her concerns to CEO Shiraz Jessa that the company would have to close in four months if it did not receive further investment.
She also made a proposal that the management team (which comprised herself and her partner) bought out the business from him.
After sending out these concerns and proposals via email, Thomas told the employment tribunal that she suffered a number of detriments.
Firstly, Jessa had told another member of the company that he thought Thomas was acting in this way because she was menopausal. There was then a five-week delay in any action being taken as a result of her emails.
Discrimination cases
Thomas was concerned at the time that the lack of response from shareholders would threaten her chartered accountant status, because if the company took no action, it could become insolvent and as a director this would reflect negatively on her.
She then wrote to shareholders in March 2022 asking for them to repay a debt of more than £2 million, stating that she would not defer this beyond 21 May 2022. If Jessa repaid by then, she could take steps to wind up the company, the tribunal heard.
But in response to this demand, she was removed as a director and effectively frozen out of the business, performing lower level work than she was used to. She was also threatened with dismissal if she continued to raise concerns.
In April 2022, her partner was made redundant by Bibimoney and Thomas subsequently tendered her own resignation. In her resignation letter, she stated that she felt that Jessa had suggested her contract was fraudulent because of the menopause comment. This is subject to a separate breach of contract claim in the High Court.
Thomas made a series of claims to the employment tribunal, including that she had made a protected disclosure and was then subject to detriment; constructive dismissal and unfair dismissal because she resigned due to a breach in trust and confidence; direct age and sex discrimination; race and age harassment and unlawful deduction from wages.
She was successful in her claims for sex and age discrimination based on the menopause comment.
In his judgment, Employment Judge Singh said: “It was clear that a hypothetical male or younger female comparator would not have had such a comment made to them due to the very nature of the comment.”
In 2021, the number of employment tribunal cases that cited menopause increased by 44%, with age and sex discrimination common routes for employee claims.
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