Judge dismisses property developer’s claim that former employees were on headhunting mission.
A birthday song was sung and a cake brought out for the occasion but a property developer claimed the birthday party was a front for a headhunting mission by its ex-employees and took them to court.
Its claims were dismissed by Justice Tan Lee Meng, who said in his 65-page judgement released yesterday that Walton International Group had not proven its case against its former Walton Singapore executive vice-president for Asia Winston Yau Kwok Seng and former Walton Malaysia vice-president for sales James Iseli.
Four months after Mr Yau resigned in January 2008, he was slapped with a lawsuit from Walton International, which is involved in landbanking for future development.
Mr William Kevin Doherty, president and chief executive officer of the Walton group, also sued Mr Yau.
The company claimed Mr Yau solicited five employees in the Singapore office to resign and that he had conspired with Mr Iseli, who had left in May 2008, to poach staff from the group.
Walton alleged that Mr Yau wanted to set up a competing business and pull retail sales staff away from the Singapore and Malaysia offices to cripple them. It sought to claim S$14 million to S$19 million in damages from both men.
In his judgement, Justice Tan noted that Walton Singapore and Walton Malaysia had sacked or suspended many of their employees during the dispute.
Walton had claimed the employees were sacked because they were disloyal or had performed poorly.
But Justice Tan said it was clear that many employees who had refused to file affidavits on behalf of the plaintiffs, or who had filed affidavits in favour of the two men, were sacked.
On the other hand, those who changed their tune to claim they had been solicited to leave by Mr Yau and Mr Iseli, kept their jobs or had their suspensions removed.
As for the birthday celebration for Mr Yau, where the company claimed he had tried to headhunt its employees, Justice Tan said there was “ample evidence” that there was a birthday cake and a “happy birthday” song was sung for Mr Yau.
He also noted that Mr Yau had encouraged employees at the lunch to work hard for Walton Singapore.
When contacted, Walton Asia chairman Gerald Foo said: “We are certainly disappointed at the outcome of this case. We will be reviewing the decision to determine whether an appeal should be made.”
Source : Today – 4 Jun 2011
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