City Worker Abuses Trust

The manager of an investment banking division who had access to vast quantities of confidential client data, sent messages to a personal acquaintance via messaging app Whatsapp to show off about the financial status of his clients. He divulged data about deals he could involve them in and how much money he could make from them.

Once the messages were discovered he was immediately suspended but decided to resign from his job before the disciplinary process was completed.  Despite his resignation, he was investigated by the Financial Conduct Authority and was fined £38,198 for his failure to act with due care and diligence.

Head of the Lawson-West Employment team, Vaishali Thakerar, comments: “The best way to combat any potential problems in the work place around social media is to have a policy in place.

This informs all of your staff what is and is not acceptable. Given what this man did, a strict confidentiality policy would also be very valuable.

Currently, there is no legislation that specifically relates to resigning from your job whilst under investigation for a work place issue. But what this story does highlight is that there will be consequences to your actions if you go against company policy and that leaving the company does not just diminish your responsibility.”

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