The ex-employee had to compensate the information security company’s legal costs of more than 30,000 euros.
F-Secure is a Finnish company that offers information security solutions for various devices. Outi Järvinen / Kauppalehti
A foreign man started working at Finnish F-Secure Oyj in the fall of 2015. According to the company, significant problems had been detected in the man’s work for a long time. The employee had received a warning and was presented with a termination agreement already in 2016.
The employment relationship finally ended with dismissal in the summer of 2019. The man had received a second warning in April 2019. After this, he had gone on sick leave and, after returning from it, refused to perform his duties for four days.
The man refused to participate in the hearing held on April 12, which dealt with the termination of his employment relationship. After this, he was released from the obligation to work and immediately escorted out of the employer’s premises.
Due to the seriousness of the violations, the employee could not be assigned to other tasks, argued F-Secure.
Demanded huge compensations
The coder, who earned more than 5,000 euros a month, did not accept his dismissal but sued F-Secure. He demanded from the information security company compensation equivalent to 18 months’ salary of more than 96,000 euros with interest due to unjustified dismissal.
The man himself said that he fulfilled all his duties conscientiously and with high quality. According to him, the warning given in 2016 had expired and the warning given in 2019 had no factual connection to the dismissal either.
According to the man, he had not been given time to influence and adapt his actions to the claims made in the warning. According to F-Secure, this was not the case.
Accused of discrimination
F-Secure described the employee as uncooperative. The employee’s development needs had remained roughly the same in 2015-2018. Improper behavior had to be pointed out every year. Underperformance and lack of cooperation were also pointed out.
According to F-Secure, the coder was not as productive as other colleagues who worked in a similar position. The man had been reprimanded, for example, for abusing flexible working hours and in order to calm the situation caused by his inability to cooperate, he had had to change teams.
According to F-Secure, the situation had escalated after the 2018 development discussion. The employee had accused his supervisor of, among other things, bullying and discrimination. When the claims were found to be unfounded in the company’s internal investigation, the employee began to accuse everyone who disagreed with him of unfair treatment.
According to F-Secure, the employee had not accepted the assessment presented in the development discussions or the improvement plan based on it. On the contrary, he had considered the improvement plan bullying and the annual performance evaluations based on false information.
The story continues after the picture
The Helsinki district court did not believe the dismissed employee’s explanations. Antti Nikkanen
Legal costs of 36,000 euros
The district court of Helsinki sided with the information security company, whose representatives told about the employee’s problematic communication, underperformance and neglect of work tasks in a uniform manner.
None of the evidence presented in the case supported the plaintiff’s claim that he had been treated unfairly.
The dismissed employee’s claim was dismissed. The man was ordered to compensate F-Secure for court costs of more than 36,000 euros. The demand for cost rationalization was rejected.
The ex-employee appealed the district court’s decision to the Helsinki Court of Appeal, which did not grant permission for further processing of the case. The judgment given by the district court in December 2021 will therefore remain in force.