Unfair Dismissal Court Upholds Rm471k Award To Ex Bank Manager

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A civil court in Ipoh dismissed a commercial bank’s judicial review to quash the Industrial Court’s award of over RM471,840.60 to its former senior manager over an unfair dismissal case.
Counsel Ramesh NP Chandran, who acted for respondent Abd Razak Mohd Kassim, confirmed that the High Court yesterday denied the legal action by Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd.
The lawyer said that judge Bhupinder Singh ruled the civil court found no reason to disturb the Industrial Court award dated Dec 17, 2019, and ordered the bank to pay RM7,000 costs to Razak.
According to the Industrial Court ruling, its chairperson Rasidah Chik ruled that the bank had failed to prove on a balance of probabilities that Razak’s termination of service was due to a fair reason.
Razak began working with the bank on July 1, 1986, as an assistant manager and managed to move up to senior manager and trade sales support officer at the bank’s Ipoh branch, before his employment was terminated in late 2013.
On May 29, 2013, the bank had issued a show-cause letter to Razak for allegedly acting beyond his powers as bank manager, with four counts of misconduct levelled against him.
Fraudulent documents
One of the misconduct allegations (first charge) was that he had wrongly advised his subordinates at the Ipoh branch to disburse over RM23 million in loans to a company with no due diligence.
Another misconduct allegation (fourth charge) was that he had failed to advise the bank branch officers to not proceed with four drawdown claims for local suppliers and seven drawdown claims for foreign suppliers, despite being aware that fraudulent documents were submitted for the drawdowns.
Despite responding on June 14, 2013, the bank was dissatisfied with his explanation and conducted an internal inquiry as well as suspended him on July 29 that year.
Following an internal probe conducted between Aug 20, 2013, and Oct 23, 2013, the bank dismissed Razak on Dec 16 that year, following its finding he was liable for the first and fourth charges. He then went to the Industrial Court on Aug 8, 2014.
On April 2, 2020, the bank went to the civil court to overturn the award, contending, among others, that the Industrial Court erred when considering all testimonies given by the bank’s witnesses during the internal probe.
Malaysiakini is attempting to reach out to the bank’s legal team from law firm Zaid Ibrahim & Co over the matter. - Mkini

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