The founder of a music technology firm has won a record unfair dismissal claim worth nearly €0.5 million in Ireland.
Hyph Ireland, previously known as Xhail Group, has been ordered to pay Mick Kiely €440,000 (£376,000) by the Workplace Relations Commission under Ireland’s Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, and €24,000 pay in lieu of notice.
Kiely, who earned €340,000 per year at the music app company he founded in 2013, claimed lost earnings for a 17-month period after the commission decided he could not reasonably mitigate his losses while subject to a non-compete clause.
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The entrepreneur claimed his dismissal was “contrived” by Xhail Group which had alleged that his visa status “did not comply with US law”.
The Irish Times reported that in November 2021, the company’s chief of staff emailed that he was “no longer an employee” and was “prohibited from accessing or entering Xhail premises by any means”.
“Please understand it will be considered trespassing if you do so, and Xhail will not treat such an unlawful act mildly,” the email read.
By the following day, Kiely had been blocked from the company computer systems and his email account.
The case centred on how much money was due to Kiely – the company had already acknowledged that the dismissal was unfair.
Kiely argued he was left with significantly reduced earnings after his dismissal because he was subject to a “non-compete clause” restricting him from starting a similar business to Xhail.
In its decision the WRC found that Kiely had shown “considerable effort and tenacity” by re-establishing himself in business in just 17 months.
Hyph Ireland argued that Kiely had failed to make efforts to mitigate his loss because of “inertia” on his part and that there were music and technology fields where he could have worked that were not restricted by the non-compete clause.
WRC adjudicator Brian Dalton calculated Kiely’s losses to be €460,000 but reduced the figure by €20,000 based on the average wage after the clause expired.
“It is not reasonable that he could be expected to mitigate his full loss considering the restrictive covenant,” Dalton wrote. “The complainant was a successful entrepreneur and has every right to pursue that goal to re-establish himself in a similar role that he was dismissed from. He has used his time well to do this.”
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