A long-serving manager with the Irish operation of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has claimed before the High Court the company has singled him out for dismissal on grounds of abuse of corporate entertainment after he informed the company of serious matters concerning money allegedly being diverted from it.
Kevin O'Doherty (54), Rochestown Road, Cork, said the background to the action against him by Pfizer arose from a Pfizer investigation spearheaded from the company's US operation.
The investigation was into some $2 million being unaccounted for arising from construction of a $95 million building for Pfizer at Ringaskiddy and other matters, including the €15,000 costs of landscaping a senior Pfizer executive's home which, he had been told, were billed to Pfizer for payment.
Mr O'Doherty said he had told senior personnel within the company of rumours that Pfizer, in the course of construction of the Ringaskiddy spray-dryer dispersion building, may have been charged for the costs of building a particular house in east Cork.
He had also reported allegations made to him that the €15,000 costs of landscaping a senior Pfizer executive's home were charged to the company.
He was later asked about those matters by an investigation team from Pfizer's US operation in the course of which he was also asked had he availed of corporate hospitality. Later he was asked by Pfizer to make arrangements for the company to download everything from his computer's hard disk. He was later notified he was being dismissed.
Mr O'Doherty was given notification of dismissal on November 27th last but has not yet been dismissed. Yesterday he secured an interim High Court order from Mr Justice Éamon de Valera restraining his dismissal as purchasing manager with the group.
The order, returnable to Monday next, was granted against Pfizer Manufacturing LLC, Pfizer Production LLC and Pfizer Overseas Pharmaceuticals, all trading as Pfizer Ireland Pharmaceuticals.
Roddy Horan for Mr O'Doherty, said his client had been singled out for dismissal on grounds of abuse of corporate entertainment when other senior personnel in the group not only availed of but actively solicited corporate hospitality.
This "hospitality" included invitations to prestigious golf courses, free overseas trips and dinners in "opulent dining houses" in New Orleans, Las Vegas and various European capitals, Mr O'Doherty said.
Pfizer's "leadership team" had also solicited 55 tickets for the 2004 hurling final and he understood these were purchased by the vendors on the black market at significant cost.
Not only were vendor-sponsored trips the norm within Pfizer, they were also very beneficial to the company, he said. As a result of networking, he had learned of an impurity within the process for the making of a drug, which information he had notified immediately.
In an affidavit, Mr O'Doherty said he had never accepted a trip which affected his judgment or actions in the performance of his duties and Pfizer had never suggested he had.
While the company policy prohibited the acceptance of entertainment "of more than token or nominal monetary value", he said it was custom and practice within Pfizer for its employees not only to attend trips but to procure places on trips.
He had been solicited by a number of plant managers to secure for them specific corporate golf invitations at various prestigious courses, he said.
He had procured, for example, after being asked by a senior director with Pfizer in the US, a benefactor for a round of golf at the Old Head golf course in Kinsale which would have cost the benefactor some €1,300.
Mr Horan said Mr O'Doherty was recommended for dismissal after what was effectively a disciplinary hearing before two senior managers, one of whom had herself availed of corporate hospitality on a greater scale than Mr O'Doherty.
Outlining the case, Mr Horan said his client had more than 30 years of service with the Pfizer operation.
The proceedings arose from earlier this year when Mr O'Doherty was told that a senior colleague had allegedly committed a serious irregularity, which Mr O'Doherty had reported to management.
