FINDINGS upheld by the Royal Court that the chair of the government-owned Jersey Development Company bullied the former Coop chief executive “cannot be disregarded” and raise “legitimate wider questions” about standards of conduct across publicly owned bodies, the Treasury Minister has said.
Appeal judges ruled on 4 September that a £3.5m compensation sum previously awarded to the former Coop chief executive Colin Macleod be reversed, but rejected attempts made to overturn underlying findings about the behaviour of three of its non-executive directors – including current JDC chair Jennifer Carnegie.
The members of a committee that Ms Carnegie sat on were found to have been “clearly targeting” Mr Macleod, who served as chief executive at Coop from 2010, in an attempt to accelerate his departure.
Private WhatsApp messages showed members discussing “the need for action sooner rather than later” and asking how colleagues were progressing with “evidence-gathering”.
The Royal Court described the conduct of three committee members as “improper, commercially unacceptable and unconscionable” – and those findings were upheld by appeal judges who described Mr MacLeod’s treatment as “unpleasant” and “reprehensible”.
At the States Assembly yesterday, St Helier North Deputy Max Andrews asked Treasury Minister Alan Maclean whether or not he “has confidence” in JDC chair Ms Carnegie in light of the Court of Appeal’s ruling.
“I am aware of the Court of Appeal judgement and the findings of the Royal Court which preceded it, and I take those findings extremely seriously”, Senator Maclean answered.
He said that he understood the JDC board to have “recently considered this matter in depth” and “unanimously confirmed its full confidence” in Ms Carnegie as chair.
But the minister stated that he would be meeting the senior independent director of the JDC to “fully understand” their conclusions, adding that the court’s findings “cannot simply be disregarded”.
“This is not simply about corporate performance,” he stated. “There is a legitimate wider question about the standards of conduct and leadership the public is entitled to expect from those who chair their publicly owned bodies.”
Senator Maclean, who added that he had been “considering the matter” since arriving in post, said he would “have to act in a balanced and fair way” to determine the correct course of action.
He concluded: “On all the information presently available to me, I have no evidence arising from the chair’s performance at JDC that would cause me to withdraw my confidence in how the JDC is currently led.”
