Court chairman Selva Rani Thiyagarajan said Tarpon Energy Services Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd presented no evidence to justify the early termination of Canadian national Gary Joseph Needham Millward on account of redundancy.

“The company has failed to prove on the balance of probabilities that the retrenchment was for a fair reason. Accordingly, Millward’s claim is allowed,” she said in a 27-page award released last week.

The company had cited the Covid-19 pandemic as a factor in Millward’s 2020 retrenchment. However, this was not explained through its witnesses and documents, the court ruled.

“There is no evidence to show that during those 19 days after the movement control order was declared, the company suffered a substantial loss,” Selva Rani said, adding that the claimant’s retrenchment was a “hasty” decision.

Selva Rani said the company could have resorted to liquidating assets worth RM26 million and collecting another RM14 million from its debtors before embarking on the retrenchment exercise.

She said the company decided to retrench the claimant on the basis that it did not require two project managers at that point in time.

“In all rationality, the claimant would be a better candidate to be the project manager. This court concludes that the claimant’s employment was not redundant for him to be retrenched,” Selva Rani said in the award.

Millward, who was under a fixed-term contract of employment for two years from Feb 27, 2019, was retrenched on April 7, 2020.

His last drawn monthly salary was RM45,482.00 but the court also awarded punitive damages after holding that the termination was done in bad faith.

“Therefore, this court, using its discretion, will award a sum of two months’ salary for each of the remaining 10 months of the unexpired duration of his contract,” Selva Rani said.

Lawyers Ramesh Sivakumar and L Narendran represented Millward while Vinu Kamalanathan and Sarah Tiong appeared for the company.