The amount covered unpaid commission to Paul Hemmings
Paul Hemmings, former commercial director at London firm Mishcon de Reya, has gotten a payout of nearly £24,000 from the firm after emerging victorious from an unfair dismissal case before the UK’s Employment Tribunal, reported the Law Society Gazette.
In a remedy judgment released last week, Employment Judge Walker ordered Mishcon to pay Hemmings £21,780 as an unfair dismissal award and about £2,000 in unlawful deduction from wages. The amount covered commission not paid to Hemmings as well as 50 weeks’ worth of pension losses.
During a two-day hearing held at the London Central tribunal in December 2024, Walker ruled that Mishcon breached its contract with Hemmings when it failed to calculate and pay Hemmings a commission every three months. Hemmings’ contract with the firm, which commenced in 2020, indicated that he was supposed to make an additional 3 percent every quarter on all fees he originated in his role with the firm’s cyber business.
Hemmings left the firm in 2023 over his treatment there, saying that his performance review process lacked transparency. He considered himself “constructively dismissed” in his resignation letter and said that he had lost trust and confidence in Mishcon, according to the Gazette.
During a formal performance meeting held prior to Hemmings’ resignation, he told his manager and an HR representative that he had not received commission payments and requested they explain the term “origination” in his contract. He was then paid almost £4,000, but the firm did not provide a breakdown of how the amount was calculated.
Hemmings’ resignation letter stated that Mishcon was hesitant to give him adequate information and that meeting notes provided to him were “fundamentally flawed,” according to the Gazette. The firm denied that it had kept information from Hemmings.
Walker determined that the firm did not attempt to give Hemmings the information he had asked for to enable him to calculate the commission he was owed. She also described the firm’s explanation as “disingenuous,” as per a statement published by the Gazette. The judge concluded that Hemmings had been constructively dismissed and that the dismissal was unfair.
