A FORMER employee of a St Aubin restaurant who failed to turn up to his Employment and Discrimination Tribunal hearing will not receive any compensation, according to a recent judgment.
Adil Hamdi, who worked at Shinzo, claimed that he was owed almost £1,000 in holiday pay, £1,000 in unpaid wages and damages for constructive unfair dismissal, following the closure of the sushi-and-steak restaurant in May.
Responding to his claim, a representative for Shinzo said Mr Hamdi had been dismissed for gross misconduct and instead argued that he owed them more than £6,000.
A full tribunal hearing was scheduled for the beginning of this month following a case-management hearing in July, according to the judgment, but Mr Hamdi and Shinzo failed to turn up for the 10am start.
The judgment stated: ‘The [tribunal] panel convened at 10am as ordered. Neither party was present.
‘The panel was told by the registrar that the claimant [Mr Hamdi] was on his way.
‘No reason for his lateness was communicated to the panel.
‘The panel applied an extension until 10.10am, to no avail. The panel applied an extension until 10.20am, again to no avail.’
The panel eventually left the building at 10.30am after dismissing Mr Hamdi’s claim due to his failure to attend the hearing.
It is the latest in a series of tribunal judgments relating to the restaurant – which closed earlier this year and was subsequently ordered to pay more than £70,000 in outstanding social-security contributions, just weeks after it emerged that the business owed more than £63,000 in ITIS tax payments.
Gavin Roberts, co-owner of Shinzo, previously claimed that he was owed £85,000 from the government’s Co-funded Payroll Scheme, established to support businesses through the pandemic.
He said the government’s administration of the support package had been ‘a constant barrier to trying to grow the business’, and said the restaurant would still be open if he had received the money he said he was owed.
However, responding to Mr Roberts’s claims, Ian Burns, the director-general of Customer and Local Services, said that the company had received in the region of £229,000 from the government’s business-support schemes and outstanding claims had been satisfied.
