{"id":343296,"date":"2026-02-18T09:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T09:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/343296\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T09:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T09:29:07","slug":"salesman-sacked-from-e200000-a-year-job-after-trying-to-block-corrupt-deal-loses-case-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/343296\/","title":{"rendered":"Salesman sacked from \u20ac200,000-a-year job after trying to block \u2018corrupt\u2019 deal loses case \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A software salesman who wound up doing fast food deliveries after being sacked from his \u20ac200,000-a-year job<\/a> has failed to convince a tribunal he was retaliated against for speaking up about alleged corruption in the firm. <\/p>\n

Ali Izzy was sacked following a complaint of \u201cinsubordination\u201d by his former line manager in 2024 after revoking a \u20ac500,000 discount on software being supplied via a middleman to the government of Saudi Arabia<\/a> in June that year.<\/p>\n

His complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against Solarwinds Software Europe DAC in Cork<\/a> city were dismissed by the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) in a decision published on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

SolarWinds, a provider of network monitoring technology, had denied the alleged employment rights breaches. <\/p>\n

Last year, Izzy told a hearing that SolarWinds\u2019 former regional sales director for the Middle East, Abdul Rehman, approved a \u201ccrazy\u201d \u20ac500,000 discount on foot of an alleged \u201cside deal\u201d with a third-party distributor in Saudi Arabia that the complainant alleged had a \u201chistory of corruption\u201d.<\/p>\n

The WRC made no ruling on the veracity of Izzy\u2019s corruption claims, but found he held a reasonable belief when he reported his concerns to his employer. However, an adjudicator concluded Izzy misconducted himself when he intervened personally in a bid to block the deal, and the firm was entitled to sack him. <\/p>\n

Izzy said one of SolarWinds\u2019 wholesale distributors in Saudi Arabia was \u201cfinancially struggling\u201d in 2023 and that its account was \u201con hold\u201d from March to November that year. <\/p>\n

Izzy said he believed Rehman \u201cleaked\u201d the prices he had set on the package to the distributor, and that his boss had a \u201cside deal\u201d with the distributor, which he claimed had \u201ca history of corruption and bribery\u201d. <\/p>\n

His evidence was that the same firm had attempted to bribe him with a sum of \u20ac10,000 in the first quarter of 2021 \u2013 and that the overture was made on behalf of the distributor by a different former SolarWinds employee, who left the company a number of years ago.<\/p>\n

He said he raised the alleged bribe attempt for the first time with Rehman in October 2023 when his boss visited the Cork offices. He went to the company\u2019s legal department about it the following month, he said. <\/p>\n

Rehman, who said he had moved on from employment with SolarWinds, acknowledged Izzy told him about the bribe attempt, but said it was \u201cnothing to do with me\u201d. <\/p>\n

Izzy described the discount as \u201ccrazy\u201d and said that it was based on \u201cmisleading information\u201d. The company\u2019s position was that the discount had been approved by managers at a higher level than Rehman. <\/p>\n

In his decision, published on Tuesday, O\u2019Riordan found that Izzy held a reasonable belief about wrongdoing, and that issues he had raised did constitute protected disclosures. <\/p>\n

At no point had the firm\u2019s lawyers suggested to Izzy his claims were \u201cfabricated or wholly speculative\u201d during cross-examination, the adjudicator wrote. <\/p>\n

However, he was not convinced whistleblowing was an \u201coperative factor\u201d in Izzy\u2019s sacking. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I am satisfied that the complainant acted out of conscientious and well-intentioned motives, those motives did not afford him licence to withdraw a sanctioned deal in a precarious manner,\u201d O\u2019Riordan wrote. <\/p>\n

By engaging in \u201cdeliberate obstruction of a critical end-of-quarter sales process\u201d, Izzy jeopardised the deal and required his colleagues to \u201credo work over the weekend\u201d. <\/p>\n

It could be classed as \u201cmisconduct capable of constituting substantial grounds for dismissal,\u201d he wrote. Izzy would have kept his job if he had not blocked the deal, he added. <\/p>\n

He dismissed Izzy\u2019s complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A software salesman who wound up doing fast food deliveries after being sacked from his \u20ac200,000-a-year job has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,1877,18,19,17,15112,80,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-343296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cork","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-saudi-arabia","14":"tag-work","15":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}