A British former prosecutor fired by the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) after allegedly swearing at an FBI officer in a London pub has won a lawsuit for unfair dismissal and breach of contract.
An employment tribunal ruled that Tom Martin, who led the British part of a global bribery investigation into the prominent Ahsani family and their Monaco-based energy consultancy Unaoil, probably did not use expletives and that U.S. agencies “clearly” wanted him removed from his post.
The former case controller, who is seeking compensation and reinstatement, was fired for gross misconduct in December 2018 – around two years after allegedly calling an FBI agent a “quisling”, “spy” and a four-letter expletive in a pub after a meeting at the U.S. embassy in London about Unaoil.
But the tribunal found that the FBI officer did not take offence at anything Martin had said and that no reasonable employer should ignore the possibility that such a late complaint might be triggered by ulterior motives.
Martin alleged he was fired because the U.S. Department of Justice and Ahsanis wanted to remove him from the Unaoil case and thwart the SFO’s attempts to extradite Saman Ahsani, a key suspect, to Britain from Rome in 2018.
The tribunal agreed.
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