Bankers and Age Discrimination
Tuesday, 12 January 2010 22:09
The Times reported over the Christmas break on the case of 42 year old Achim Beck, the £900,000 p.a. Head of Marketing at the Canadian bank CIBC. He was made redundant during a redundancy programme at the Bank and replaced with a 38 year old man. He succeeded with his claim for age discrimination because an internal memo described the new role as suiting a “younger, entrepreneurial profile”. That fell foul of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, which forbids ageism in the workplace, whether it be on the basis of people being too old or too young.
Age discrimination can lead to large awards of compensation because it is not limited to the cap on compensation that applies in unfair dismissal cases. The Tribunal has not made the award yet so it is not known what it will cost CIBC but it is bound to be a fairly substantial sum.
The moral for employers in all this is don’t refer to age in job adverts or make age (whether old or young) as a requirement. To state “previous experience preferred” shouldn’t give problems because it doesn’t imply any age.
If you require more advice on this or any other issue please do not hesitate to contact Michael Scutt on 0207 464 8433.