Dealership boss sacked for telling the car brand about a stand-down

Mr Green became general manager of Porsche Centre Brighton, a Melbourne dealership in the PM Group, in July 2018. From about October 2019, he said, the group's CEO bullied and intimidated him in meetings. He complained several times to the group's HR manager.

In March 2020, as COVID-19 arrived, the CEO recommended standing staff down. On 27 March 2020 the board stood down the entire workforce, Mr Green included, for six weeks. The CEO wanted staff to hear the news from management first. On 26 or 27 March, Mr Green rang a senior manager at Porsche Cars Australia, the brand's Australian distributor, and told him the business might be shut down. When the CEO heard about the call he opened an investigation, and on 30 March 2020 he dismissed Mr Green with immediate effect for disclosing confidential information.

Mr Green sued under the general protections. The court accepted that his complaints to HR were workplace rights, and that the stand-down and the dismissal were adverse action. Under s 361, the company then had to prove its real reasons.

It did. The court found the CEO direct but not aggressive, and believed him when he said he did not know about the complaints. The CEO alone decided to dismiss Mr Green. An outside HR adviser who helped him was not called as a witness, but the court found she was only an adviser, not a decision-maker. The information was confidential and not yet public, and Mr Green had been warned before about sharing information with Porsche. A less senior employee who disclosed information got only a warning, but the court accepted that trust in a senior manager mattered more. The stand-down covered every employee for COVID business reasons, and Mr Green accepted he was not its target.

Because breaching confidentiality was serious misconduct under his contract, he was not owed notice either. All his claims were dismissed.