Background:

The Complainant had been employed by the Respondent, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, since August 2018 as the Respondent’s Pharmacovigilance Manager. This meant the Complainant’s role was to advise the Respondent in the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse events in the medicines they produced.

The Complainant uncovered a marketing communication issued by the Respondent which was drafted in a way which had the potential to confuse and mislead client pharmacies into believing they were reading patent information materials. This marketing information was formatted and written as though they were patent information material, but excluded some language about patient risk which would have been otherwise required by law. The Complainant raised this to the Respondent, ultimately causing the Respondent to self-refer the matter to the Health Products Regulatory Authority. The HPRA ultimately required the Respondent to recall the communications in question.

The Complainant said he was the subject of a campaign of retaliation after this, detailing a number of alleged incidents of victimisation, culminating in a dismissal (which also was the subject of the second decision). It arose in the course of the hearing that the Complainant received a number of performance reviews since the incident in question which resulted in “needs improvement” ratings. These ratings were negatively impacted by the Complainant’s communication skills and, in particular, took into account the views of his colleagues in this respect.

Outcome:

The Adjudication Officer was critical of the Complainant and found that all allegations of victimisation which he pursued were not well founded. However, the Adjudication Officer did find that the Respondent’s use of performance reviews which incorporated the views of colleagues constituted a form of victimisation. This was because these colleagues were negatively impacted by the Complainant’s protected disclosure and therefore their perception of the Complainant created a detriment to the Complainant which he would not have been subject to had he not made the protected disclosure.

Practical Guidance for Employers:

Employers may need to take steps to protect employees who make protected disclosures to ensure they are not disadvantaged, potentially or otherwise, by having made those disclosures.

The full case is here:  https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2023/november/adj-00034384.html