The Serious Fraud Office has lost an appeal over its former Unaoil case controller’s unfair sacking in the latest setback for the beleaguered watchdog – the day after it was slammed by a retired High Court judge for ‘fundamental’ failings.
Tom Martin was dismissed in 2018 after complaints by the Ahsani family, which owned and controlled energy consultancy Unaoil, and the US Department of Justice about his alleged conduct at a London pub after a meeting between SFO, DOJ and Federal Bureau of Investigation officers.
Martin was said to have called an FBI agent a ‘spy’ and a ‘quisling’, as well as a ‘c**t’ – which he denied, arguing that the complaints were ‘motivated by a joint desire to see me removed as case controller and senior lawyer on the Unaoil case’.
He brought a claim against the SFO at the employment tribunal (ET), which last year decided that Martin’s claims of unfair dismissal and breach of contract were ‘well founded’.
Employment Judge Andrew Glennie found that the SFO’s decision that Martin did say ‘c**t’ was not a conclusion that ‘no reasonable employer could have reached’, however he ruled that Martin having denied using the word did not amount to ‘wilful misrepresentation’.
He also said: ‘The complaints by the US agencies were made alongside complaints by [Unaoil’s chief operating officer Saman] Ahsani’s defence team. The latter clearly wanted the claimant removed from the investigation: the former must have known this and added their complaints in that knowledge. I find it inescapable that the US agencies and the defence team had the same reason for raising the complaints, namely that they wanted the claimant removed so as to prevent difficulty with their joint wish to have Mr Ahsani extradited to the USA.’
The SFO challenged the decision at the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), which today heard that Martin suffered ‘severe consequences’ and has not found alternative work since his dismissal as a result of the finding of ‘gross misconduct against a solicitor’.
Judge Murray Shanks rejected the SFO’s appeal in relation to the findings of unfair dismissal, ruling that the ET was entitled to decide there were not reasonable grounds to consider that Martin denying using the word c**t amounted to wilful misrepresentation.
He also ruled the ET was ‘entitled to find that the [SFO] had not carried out a sufficient investigation’ because of its failure ‘to look into the claimant’s contention that the complaint from the Americans was made at the time it was as part of an attempt to secure his removal as case controller’.
The SFO did succeed on a single ground in relation to whether Glennie failed to make a reduction for any ‘contributory fault’ in relation to Martin’s compensation and the matter was remitted to him, to be considered at a remedies hearing in due course.
After the hearing, Martin said he was ‘just delighted with the outcome, simple as that’. An SFO spokesperson said the watchdog is pleased that the EAT ‘remitted the case to the employment tribunal for further consideration’, adding: ‘We have always maintained that Tom Martin’s actions gave grounds for his dismissal and now the employment tribunal will need to consider this issue.’
The decision follows yesterday’s quashing of the conviction of Stephen Whiteley, 67, who was jailed for three years for allegedly paying over $500,000 in bribes to win a lucrative oil contract in Iraq, in part due to SFO director Lisa Osofsky’s previously-undisclosed dealings with a ‘fixer’ working for the Ahsanis.
Whiteley is now the third of four men convicted as part of the Unaoil case to have their convictions overturned because of the SFO’s ‘wholly inappropriate’ contacts with David Tinsley, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration agent, and ‘serious’ disclosure failures.
A scathing review by former High Court judge Sir David Calvert-Smith, which was published yesterday, recommended that the SFO must prevent third parties having ‘direct access’ to the watchdog’s director and ensure all prosecutions have an ‘effective disclosure strategy’.
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