Gross misconduct accusation - advice on correcting an employment contract

[inver28]

I have been suspended for correcting my own local (non UK) employment contract (I have power of attorney to do this) . It has been incorrectly reported since 2014 and only come to light after an audit by international legal tax advisors, who recommended I update my contract. The update was made to reflect the same figure as per my tax return, with no gain to myself. I am now accused of gross misconduct and suspended pending enquiry. Where do I stand legally and how do I prepare for the 'interrogation' meeting ahead?

[ULA]

Can you confirm whether your contract is covered by UK law as you describe it as a local (non UK) employment contract.

[efpom]

You need to provide more details about what, exactly, the allegations are e.g. "Gross misconduct in that you did (or did not) do the following......."

It seems that you changed the amount of salary written into you local contract to reflect the actual salary in your local tax return and did so on professional advice, using a power of attorney held by you, presumably issued so as to empower you to carry (local) tasks on behalf of your employer. Is my gist of the matter right?

[inver28]

yes, this is exactly correct. Identified a non compliance with ministry of labour and finance dept. The figure was incorrectly reported over a 7 year period (since start of contract)
and has only been identified by review of administrative requirements in Aug 2020.

[inver28]

The UK contract remains unchanged and correct, no authority to change this, local contract is required to be lodged with ministry of labour for work permit issue and should reflect annualised liquid grossed income, whether received in country or overseas.

[inver28]

You need to provide more details about what, exactly, the allegations are e.g. "Gross misconduct in that you did (or did not) do the following......."

It seems that you changed the amount of salary written into you local contract to reflect the actual salary in your local tax return and did so on professional advice, using a power of attorney held by you, presumably issued so as to empower you to carry (local) tasks on behalf of your employer. Is my gist of the matter right?

Allegations are:
December 2020, I reissued my own local contract of employment, updating my gross monthly salary from approximately (e.g. £1) per month to approximately (e.g. £19) per month.
Subsequently later in December 2020, I submitted that revised document to the local Ministry of Labour.

Local tax return (submitted by local branch of international professional tax accountants) has reported the £19 figure for 7 years.

[efpom]

So, your defence is (probably) that you corrected your contract of employment to reflect the true value of your wages as reported to the local authorities. i.e. so as to comply with the law. That cannot be gross misconduct.

[inver28]

not applicable

[inver28]

Company have requested me to submit a statement of facts, should I attach emails, proof, etc as backup or withold in case of further action?

[efpom]

I think that you should take the position that there is only one employee - employer relationship and that the terms of that relationship are distributed over two contract documents - Home (UK) and abroad(wherever you are stationed).

ON 'statement of facts' - I think you must comply with the instruction from your employer.

On supply of documents in support of that, I think that, as you have not been instructed to furnish those, you do not do so until/unless you are instructed to.

[efpom]

ON the assertion of gross misconduct the employer has not been specific about his grounds for making that assertion, so I speculate that the assertion may be footed on an assertion that you exercised the POA inappropriately.

[inver28]

I dont believe Company HR was aware of existence the POA at the time of issuing the GM notice and no references by company made that I acted inappropriately, so assumptions were made that I did act incorrectly.
Does this make my case stronger?
Any advice on strengthening my defence?

[efpom]

Can you post up the notice

[inver28]

as previous post:;
The GM Allegations are that :
1. I reissued my own local contract of employment, updating my gross monthly salary from approximately (e.g. £1) per month to approximately (e.g. £19) per month.
2. Subsequently later that month, I submitted that revised document to the local Ministry of Labour.

[efpom]

So, you admit the acts described in the assertions.

Your defence is that you did those acts so to comply with local law. No inappropriate use of POA to do so.

Something along the lines of:

"Had I not done so my employer would have been in breach of local law and that I acted pursuant to my duty to my employer to act, so far as is in my power to do so, to cure any breach of local law."

I would go on to say.
"Before making the assertion of 'gross misconduct it is the duty of the person making that assertion to investigate - no such investigation took place or if it did, it was fatally flawed in that it failed to to interview a key witness, i.e. me. It is in that context that the belated request for a statement of facts was requested of me. That should have occurred before making any assertion of misconduct as a matter of natural justice"