In the case of Prof M Clement and Mr S Poole v Swansea University an employment tribunal has ruled that Swansea University acted fairly in dismissing two academics for gross misconduct after they failed to declare personal equity stakes in the proposed £200m Life Sciences and Wellness Village project in Carmarthenshire.
After a tribunal in Cardiff lasting more than two weeks, for which there was an evidence bundle running to some 13,000 pages, Judge Stephen Jenkins said the university were justified in sacking the former dean of its management school, Prof Marc Clement and colleague, Steven Poole, in 2019, following a protracted independent disciplinary hearing that began the previous year following their suspensions They both then subsequently lost appeals.
They were dismissed for gross misconduct alongside the university’s former vice-chancellor Richard B Davies, who plans to bring his own employment tribunal case. Prof Davies’ dismissal was not related to any proposed equity stakes in the wellness village project. Under the ordinances of the university all staff have to declare equity stakes or external roles.
In a written judgement Judge Jenkins said that the “dismissals of the two claimants had been fair, and that their claims of unfair dismissal should be dismissed.”
He added “that there was nothing to indicate there had been any procedural deficiencies in the way that the respondent (the university) had managed the disciplinary processes in relation to the two claimants.
“I considered that it was not unreasonable for the respondent to conclude that trust and confidence had been breached, or that the breach of the conflict-of-interest policy was serious and amounted to gross misconduct.”
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