Former UK Glencore oil trader Andrew Kearns, 38, was employed by Glencore UK Ltd from January 2009 until October 2010, when he was dismissed from the company for serious misconduct after missing a series of meetings on a business trip.
The oil trader, Kearns, who earned about $500,000 a year, was fired for drinking too much, lost a wrongful termination lawsuit against the company, with a judge calling the case “ludicrous.”
Jonathan Cohen, a lawyer for Baar, Switzerland-based Glencore, said today that Andrew Kearns was “dishonest in his evidence” and that he didn’t realize how much the company had tried to help him. According to Bloomberg News Judge Richard Seymour in London said Andrew Kearns’ firing in 2010 “was richly justified.”
Andrew Kearns has argued during the trial that Glencore’s claims were not true and that he had been doing his job by socializing with his clients. He has also denied having any kind of alcohol problem and said that the company singled him out because of a disagreement and or personality conflict with managers.
Bloomberg News reports that Kearns, who didn’t appear in the London courtroom to hear the ruling and is no longer represented by his legal team, will have to pay Glencore’s legal costs of at least 150,000 pounds, the judge said.
Judge Richard Seymour in London had already dismissed a portion of the lawsuit over a share award worth about $1.2 million and today rejected the remaining wrongful termination claim seeking about 12,000 pounds or $20,000. Judge Richard Seymour said he was “troubled” by Andrew Kearns’s lawsuit because it didn’t state a valid legal claim.
Image Credit: The UK Telegraph