A financial advisor who rose from her start as a JobBridge intern at a mortgage brokerage to a “top performer” on a six-figure salary was unfairly fired when her boss found out she was about to launch a rival business, a tribunal has ruled.
The employee, Natasza Korajda, and her daughter-in-law Natalia Koziol, were both sacked by Stephen Hamilton Financial Services, trading as Mortgageline, in August 2023.
Ms Korajda joined Mr Hamilton’s company in 2013 on a JobBridge placement, later qualifying as a financial advisor and building up a client base, the WRC was told.
By 2023, Ms Korajda told a hearing last year, she was “a top performer in the company”, making around €139,000 a year – but was considering leaving the firm and setting up a business with Ms Koziol.
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They set up their own firm, NK Capital Partners Ltd and registered the business name ‘Get Mortgage’ that March, but did not start trading, as they required Central Bank approval, the tribunal heard.
Ms Korajda said she wanted to “set up and get regulatory approval” before talking to Mr Hamilton about their plans, and hoped to “work with” their former employer as they pursued the venture.
She said she listed Mr Hamilton on a Central Bank application form, but asked the regulator not to contact him straight away. She said she was “very surprised” when the regulator reached out to her boss shortly afterwards.
Her evidence was that Mr Hamilton took a “conciliatory” tone at first and undertook to sign the forms. Within days, there was a “big shift in his position” and both she and Ms Koziol were told to “resign or face a disciplinary hearing”, Ms Korajda said.
When they did not, they were suspended, the tribunal heard. When they were first called to an investigation meeting, the complainants’ solicitors wrote back threatening to “bring an application for injunctive relief” if their suspensions were not lifted and their access to workplace systems restored.
Mr Hamilton said he was “shocked” to discover his staff had set up a new firm to “compete” with his business. He said he was concerned about their access to clients and other sensitive information, and believed dismissal to be “necessary in the circumstances”.
The managing director investigated the matter personally. He wrote in a report of 15 July 2023 that the two employees “set up a business in direct competition” with his firm in breach of their contracts of employment and that their immediate dismissals were warranted.
Mr Hamilton then sent this report to an external human resources consultant, Gillian Knight, who, after an exchange of legal correspondence with the workers’ solicitors, met them for a disciplinary hearing on 31 July that year. Ms Knight recommended both employees be dismissed on 11 August, the WRC heard.
Mr Hamilton signed the Central Bank fitness and probity forms after terminating the workers, the tribunal heard.
Adjudicator David James Murphy wrote in his decision: “I am not clear as to why they expected any sort of positive reception when, at some later date, they notified the respondent that they had been developing their own rival business while still employees.
The workers “largely failed to address” their employer’s “reasonable concerns” in the disciplinary process, and the complainant’s solicitors instead threatened legal action to have their suspensions lifted.
“They did not offer to abandon the new company to protect the employment relationship,” Mr Murphy noted further.
The employees’ legal team had argued that by investigating their clients’ actions personally, Mr Hamilton had “predetermined” the disciplinary process.
Mr Murphy found it was “probably unavoidable” that Mr Hamilton formed a view of the matter. However, he found the employer “fell below” the requirement to conduct a “reasonably fair process”.
This was because Mr Hamilton made explicit findings of gross misconduct instead and set out his view that dismissal was warranted in the investigation report, instead of making findings of fact only.
The external disciplinary officer, Ms Knight, “could not remedy the obvious, and avoidable prejudice arising from Mr Hamilton’s report”, Mr Murphy added.
The adjudicator upheld both workers’ complaints under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977. He awarded Ms Korajda €4,650, a quarter of the losses she had claimed arose from the dismissal. He directed the firm to pay Ms Koziol €3,000, half of her claimed losses.
Hugh O’Donnell BL appeared for the company instructed by Ken Kennedy Law. Michael Kinsley BL was instructed by KOD Lyons on behalf of the two claimants.
Between 2011 and 2016, the JobBridge programme run by the Department of Social Protection saw jobseekers placed with companies for a minimum of 30 hours a week “work experience” in return for a €52.50 supplement to their social welfare.
