The CBI has settled legal action brought against it by its former director general Tony Danker after his dismissal in April, the UK business lobby group said on Monday.
Mr Danker was sacked last year after an investigation into complaints about his conduct in the workplace.
The CBI said its board had reached an undisclosed settlement with Mr Danker, who had said he was made the “fall guy” for a wide-ranging misconduct scandal at the organisation.
He was dismissed during a crisis for the CBI, centred on media reports of separate allegations of serious sexual misconduct within the organisation, which did not involve Mr Danker.
The scandal left the CBI fighting for survival as dozens of its most high-profile member companies, including Aviva, NatWest and John Lewis, quit or paused their engagement with the group.
Mr Danker last year said the allegations against him included viewing the Instagram accounts of CBI staff, inviting selected staff to a karaoke night and taking junior staff to breakfasts or one-on-one meetings.
He has publicly apologised “to anyone at the CBI that I made uncomfortable” but denied that his actions constituted misconduct, saying in April that his reputation had been “totally destroyed” because his name had appeared alongside a set of allegations, including rape, that did not involve him.
“Not only did they throw me under the bus, they reversed the bus back over me,” he said of the CBI at the time.
In its statement on Monday, the CBI said it “reiterates that Mr Danker is not associated in any way with the historical allegations reported in the media concerning matters which predate his tenure at the CBI and rejects any such association”.
The legal action is understood to have commenced after then-CBI president Brian McBride accused Mr Danker of being “selective” in his account of the reasons for his sacking and said that any employee who felt they had been unfairly dismissed had the right to take a case to the employment tribunal or the High Court.
The announcement of the settlement is the first significant move by Rupert Soames since he took over from McBride as president of the CBI on Thursday.
His in-tray, as the organisation attempts to recover from the crisis it faced last year, will include persuading more companies to return as members.
Any payout to Mr Danker would add to the CBI’s financial challenges after revenues were hit by members exiting and the cancellation of events. It made heavy cuts last year, including a redundancy programme, and had to seek banks’ support.
The CBI received a boost last week when PwC’s UK boss confirmed the consultancy had rejoined the organisation and called for a “loud restart”.
Mr Danker declined to comment.
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024
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