Legal Position

[LN1893]

For the past 9 months I have been working to unravel a Crypto mining operation within my company and related purchases by members of staff to enable this mining to take place. This amounts to large sums of money for items not required by the company.I have involved the Police but they say the purchases were approved by other staff which amounts to authorisation, therefore not criminal and I need to take a civil route which is costly and the company has suffered enough and the stress this has caused is unbearable.

All the staff in question have either resigned or been dismissed. However this did also highlight that a member of staff was, unbeknown to me ,using business debit cards belonging to myself and the finance manager to make such purchases. When questioned in an investigatory meeting he denied all of this.I was later to discover that he had used these cards to make personal purchases (by mistake!) as well as purchases for the crypto operation on the company cards stored in his personal shopping sites.The company had the same shopping sites so they ran in parallel and went undetected .He paid the money back where we identified personal purchases but he has not disclosed others & we also believe he has sold company equipment which he refuses to either confirm or deny.. He was a senior manager employed for many years & I felt his warranted a dismissal for gross misconduct.There are potentially large sums of money that he has spent for personal purchases and unnecessary IT equipment to aid the crypto operation dating back for at least 7 years.

No doubt he is going to go to a tribunal as he says that the punishment was unfair. and invoked our appeal process. Should I report this as fraud to the police again as it rather changes the stance of authorising purchases but more to the point I want to have a very strong case in defending the potential tribunal claim. Clearly all trust has gone and I feel strongly that dismissal was the only option.

[echat11]

Hi LN1893

Welcome to LB

'He paid the money back where we identified personal purchases but he has not disclosed
thers & we also believe he has sold company equipment which he refuses to either confirm or deny.'

What you need to do is identify the total loss to the company (with reasons for the loss).
I doubt the authorities will entertain anything without knowing 'exactly' what the financial
lost is through fraud / theft. You could call in specialist auditors.to track down financial
losses through theft. That will help regards the authorities and employment tribunal.

You can send your bank / credit card companies a SAR, they have 30 days to provide
the information.

https://legalbeagles.info/library/gu...ccess-request/

Also do you have Employee Dishonesty Insurance? Check your insurance policies.

[atticus]

An SAR for company accounts? Really?

[echat11]

An SAR for company accounts? Really?

Really, a limited company cannot make a subject access request, but a director can.

[atticus]

yes, but whose data?

[echat11]

yes, but whose data?

The Directors, the finance manager etc.

[LN1893]

Hi LN1893

Welcome to LB

'He paid the money back where we identified personal purchases but he has not disclosed
thers & we also believe he has sold company equipment which he refuses to either confirm or deny.'

What you need to do is identify the total loss to the company (with reasons for the loss).
I doubt the authorities will entertain anything without knowing 'exactly' what the financial
lost is through fraud / theft. You could call in specialist auditors.to track down financial
losses through theft. That will help regards the authorities and employment tribunal.

You can send your bank / credit card companies a SAR, they have 30 days to provide
the information.

https://legalbeagles.info/library/gu...ccess-request/

Also do you have Employee Dishonesty Insurance? Check your insurance policies.

Thank you, I'm checking this out with my insurer.

I tried the SAR approach but got no where !!

[atticus]

For a case like this, you really need to consult the company's solicitors.

SARs have their place and their uses, but clearly this is not such a case.

[wales01man]

Are you a director /shareholder or owner of the company?

[ULA]

Coming at this from a different perspective. In the last paragraph of your initial post you state that he is no doubt "...going to go to a tribunal as he says that the punishment was unfair. and invoked our appeal process.".

What you will have to defend at the tribunal is the potential claim for unfair dismissal and the disciplinary process you followed that resulted in his dismissal. I would be interested to know what the allegations were that you set out in the letter inviting him to the disciplinary meeting and the evidence you provided him to support those allegations in advance of the meeting. It will be this that an ET will consider whether a reasonable employer, given the same set of circumstances would have reached a conclusion to dismiss and in doing so was the process you followed fair and reasonable.

[LN1893]

Are you a director /shareholder or owner of the company?

I am a Director