TechnologyOne has been allowed to appeal the court decision on a bullying claim made by one of its former executives.
In October 2020, the ERP vendor was ordered by the Federal Court of Australia to pay $5.2 million to its former Victoria state manager Behnam Roohizadegan
The court ruling read that the presiding judge for the earlier decision was “erroneous and against the weight of the evidence”.
The appeal judge also said the initial judge’s findings on TechOne chairman Adrian Di Marco were “glaringly improbable, contrary to compelling inferences, against the weight of the evidence, affected by impermissible speculation, influenced by matters not put to Di Marco or the relevant witnesses, and not based on a fair and objective assessment of the relevant evidence.”
In its ASX announcement, TechOne said it was pleased that the original judgement was overturned and that a retrial was granted.
“As has been previously reported in the press, this was a senior executive earning close to $1 million per year, who no longer had the confidence of the board and his fellow executives and against whom serious allegations had been raised by staff, and we took action to address in 2016,” the announcement read.
CRN has contacted Roohizadegan, via his legal team at Harmers Workplace Lawyers, for comment.
Roohizadegan sued TechOne in 2018, claiming he was bullied by two senior executives in 2016. He sought a payout of $14.82 million at the time.
The former exec said one such instance involved being allegedly verbally dressed down by sales and marketing executive Stuart MacDonald when he asked about negotiating on a discount for TechOne's customer La Trobe University.
-1.jpg&w=100&c=1&s=0)
.png&w=100&c=1&s=0)
