Iryna Malyk had claimed that her ‘fully remote’ role allowed her to relocate to France
A finance manager who was sacked for working from France attempted to sue her former company for unfair dismissal.
Iryna Malyk brought a tribunal claim against Teleperformance Contact after she was dismissed for working remotely in Europe without its permission.
Ms Malyk argued that she was unfairly dismissed by the Bristol-based company in a “disproportionate” sacking because her contract was “fully remote”.
However, an employment judge threw out her claims after finding that her contract “expressly” required her to “work from her home in the UK”.
The tribunal, in Bristol, heard that she worked for Teleperformance Contact from May 2022 as a European regional finance business partner.
Teleperformance Contact is a subsidiary of a French multinational company and provides outsourced visa services to governments including those of the UK, France and Germany.
Ms Malyk told bosses she wanted to relocate to France in 2024 after her husband was offered a job in the country.
However, her line manager, Michael Aouate, said her contract did not allow her to work in France and that there were no job openings within the company there.
‘Legal and tax issues’
“In a follow-up call on June 26, Mr Aouate told [Ms Malyk] that she could not work on UK projects in France on a permanent basis because the laws are different and this would cause legal and tax issues,” the tribunal heard.
Later that day, Ms Malyk told the firm’s human resources chief that she was moving to France and intended to keep working in her current job.
She was suspended in August that year and then sacked after a disciplinary hearing found she had ignored an “express instruction” not to work from France. She appealed, but this was dismissed.
Ms Malyk then brought claims of unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal at an employment tribunal, arguing that the company’s actions were “disproportionate” and that she was allowed to be “fully remote” in her contract.
But Hazel Oliver, the employment judge, dismissed both claims after finding her contract “expressly states that [Ms Malyk] will work from her home in the UK”.
She ruled that the reason Ms Malyk was sacked was “not trivial” as the company believed it would not be complying with French law if she lived in the country permanently while working on a Britain-based contract.
Ms Oliver said: “[Ms Malyk] argues that she had acted openly and did not believe there was gross misconduct, and says the actions [of Teleperformance Contact] were disproportionate.
“I do not agree. The instruction was reasonable in the circumstances, and the disciplinary action was pursued because [Ms Malyk] was continuing to refuse to comply despite having been warned about the consequences.”