The Court of Appeal has warned that companies the size of Dutch haulier Jan De Rijk should have proper procedures for disciplining and dismissing staff. The Court had overturned a previous decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal involving Jan De Rijk's London operations manager Charles Sandhu. The Tribunal had upheld an original ruling by Reading Employment Tribunal which stated that Sandhu had left of his own accord when he negotiated a retirement package after being told he was to be dismissed.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal had argued it was open to conclude that an employee had not been dismissed when he had conducted financial negotiations about his termination of employment. But Lord Justice Wall set aside that judgement and asked for the case to be heard again by a different tribunal.
He said it could not be argued that Sandhu was negotiating freely and he had only achieved three months' salary and continued short-term use of a car and mobile phone. The company's 
conduct was unacceptable as it did not appear to have carried out any investigation into Sandhu's alleged misconduct before summoning him to a meeting. It had made up its mind to dismiss Sandhu before it had heard him and appeared to have no proper grievance procedure, dismissal or appeal structures in place.