{"id":70407,"date":"2025-09-17T22:43:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T22:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/70407\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T22:43:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T22:43:08","slug":"fired-salesman-testifies-on-corruption-claims-at-cork-headquartered-global-it-firm-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/70407\/","title":{"rendered":"Fired salesman testifies on corruption claims at Cork-headquartered global IT firm \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sacked software salesman has alleged his ex-boss had a \u201cside deal\u201d with a distributor with a \u201chistory of corruption\u201d and approved a \u201ccrazy\u201d \u20ac500,000 discount on technology being licensed in a deal to supply the Saudi government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The salesman, Ali Izzy, made the claims as he testified to the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) on Wednesday in Cork<\/a> on his complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against his ex-employer, SolarWinds Software Europe DAC. <\/p>\n

Mr Izzy was sacked from his nearly \u20ac200,000-a-year job as an IT sales rep after a company disciplinary officer agreed with his manager\u2019s complaint that he had committed \u201cinsubordination\u201d by revoking a discount on a deal worth hundreds of thousands of euro on June 30th, 2024. <\/p>\n

SolarWinds, the tribunal has heard, is a provider of network monitoring technology, which it sells via third-party distributors wholesaling its products to partner companies bidding on contracts with end users. <\/p>\n

The claimant alleged his boss, Middle East regional sales director Abdul Rehman, had approved an \u201cunnecessary and unjustified\u201d 62 per cent discount to the benefit of the distributor \u2013 with his employer, then a publicly traded company, losing out by \u201cmore than \u20ac500,000\u201d. <\/p>\n

The tribunal heard Mr Izzy started work on a package in the second quarter of 2023 to meet requirements posted to the Saudi Arabian government tendering website Etiadd, by the Ministry of Energy there. <\/p>\n

Mr 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

Mr Izzy said he believed Mr 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<\/a> 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

[\u00a0Security guard who felt \u2018let down and used\u2019 awarded 40 times value of wages he was deniedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

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

Mr Rehman told the WRC in evidence on Tuesday he left Solar Winds at the end of August because he \u201cgot a better opportunity in a different company\u201d. <\/p>\n

He accepted that Mr Izzy approached him and told him he had been offered a bribe by the distributor. \u201cHe has to go through to official HR channels. It has nothing to do with me,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mark Harty SC, appearing for Mr Izzy with David Byrnes BL, instructed by Gr\u00e1inne O\u2019Donovan of Douglas Law, asked Mr Rehman: \u201cDid you ever get offered a bribe by [the distributor]?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Mr Rehman said.<\/p>\n

Mr Rehman had said discounts on such deals could \u201cgo up to 90 per cent\u201d in the Middle East and that once VAT and professional services were accounted for it was \u201cnot a very significant jump\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0RT\u00c9 presenter tells tribunal he overheard order to cut editor\u2019s shiftsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lied, unfortunately,\u201d Mr Izzy said when that evidence was put to him. \u201cI hadn\u2019t given 90 per cent in my whole life.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said the normal range for a distributor discount was 20 to 35 per cent, and that Mr Rehman did not have the authority to give a 62 per cent discount. <\/p>\n

Asked by Mary Fay BL, who was instructed for the company by law firm Arthur Cox, why he didn\u2019t report the alleged 2021 bribe attempt earlier, Mr Izzy said: \u201cI wasn\u2019t connected with other teams at the time. I was fresh, just joined an international company. I didn\u2019t know the rules, how to work things. At the time, we hadn\u2019t taken any type of training about corruption, about compliance.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said the ex-employee \u201cgave it by hand\u201d and that due to the individual\u2019s seniority he felt he \u201ccouldn\u2019t report that at the time because I would definitely be penalised\u201d. <\/p>\n

He was dismissed on July 22nd, 2024, following a second disciplinary process on foot of Mr Rehman\u2019s complaint of insubordination in connection with the Ministry of Energy deal pricing. <\/p>\n

Mr Izzy told the WRC he had applied for \u201cmore than 100\u201d jobs since his dismissal, but had been unable to find new employment. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Lidl store manager who couldn\u2019t produce receipt for drinks loses unfair dismissal claimOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He said Mr Rehman had written to ex-SolarWinds partner companies \u201cinforming them in a way that I was dismissed due to misconduct\u201d. He said his reputation had been \u201cruined\u201d as a result of the company\u2019s actions. <\/p>\n

The company\u2019s lawyers confirmed to the tribunal that Mr Izzy had been earning \u20ac197,062 a year when he was dismissed. <\/p>\n

Mr Izzy, who still lives in Cork, confirmed to the hearing that he had been reduced to doing food deliveries on Uber and JustEat, as he was \u201cdesperate\u201d to support his family, but had to stop for medical reasons after a month. <\/p>\n

Adjudicator Tom O\u2019Riordan indicated that he would hear closing submissions at a later date. <\/p>\n

SolarWinds, which employs several hundred people at its international headquarters in Cork City, was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange until February this year, when it was acquired by a private equity firm. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sacked software salesman has alleged his ex-boss had a \u201cside deal\u201d with a distributor with a \u201chistory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,1877,18,19,17,15112,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-70407","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-workplace-relations-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70407","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=70407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}