A hotel group claim that an industrial tribunal chairman had ruled against it because of “bad blood” was dismissed and an employee that had been unfairly fired kept his compensation.

An Appeals Court has rejected Island Hotels Group’s claim and ordered it to pay former employee Brian Bonnici almost €5,800 in compensation after it ruled that breach of trust was not a good enough reason to fire someone.

The issue revolved around a report reviewed by the company’s chief operations officer, Raphael Cauchi, which said Mr Bonnici was seen at a service station helping his father wash his car while he was on sick leave.

Mr Bonnici, who worked as an assistant cost controller after having been promoted from his part-time role as a waiter, at first denied the incident but later admitted lying.

As a result, he was told he had breached his employer’s trust and was dismissed.

The company cried foul, appealing that there was bad blood between the tribunal chairman and the company

The tribunal decided in his favour, quoting the Employment and Industrial Relations Act as saying that lack of trust in an employee is not a good enough reason for job termination.

Following the decision, the company cried foul, filing an appeal claiming there was bad blood between the tribunal chairman, Antoine Degiovanni, and the company.

It said there was a history of bad blood between Mr Degiovanni and Island Hotels director Winston Zahra Sr, going back to a time when the chairman worked as a human resources manager at the Dragonara Casino, where Mr Zahra was chairman.

But this argument was rejected by the Court of Appeal, presided over by Madam Justice Edwina Grima, who said the court could not investigate such matters, especially since it was something that had been known from the very beginning of the tribunal proceedings. On the merits of the case, the judge ruled that the tribunal was right to rule that breach of trust was not a good enough reason to end an employee’s job.