CBI settles with Danker over sacking
THE Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has agreed to settle a wrongful dismissal case brought by former boss Tony Danker.
The business organisation sacked Danker as director-general last April following complaints about his behaviour.
Terms of the pay-out were not disclosed but come as the latest embarrassment for the crisis-plagued organisation.
Danker, 52, faced criticism for inviting younger colleagues to karaoke or breakfast meetings. In a BBC interview after his dismissal, he acknowledged making some staff feel ‘very uncomfortable’ and apologised.
The CBI said at the time that his behaviour ‘fell short of that expected’ of his position.
But Danker said he had been the ‘fall guy’ as separate and much more serious claims about the organisation emerged.
They included accusations of rape, sexual harassment and drug abuse of some of its staff – none of them involving Danker.
That wider crisis precipitated an exodus of some of the CBI’s biggest corporate members, from insurance giant Aviva to retail group John Lewis, and threatened its very existence.
Meanwhile, it was plunged into a war of words with Danker, who said shortly after being fired: ‘Not only did they just throw me under the bus, they reversed the bus back over me. My reputation has been totally destroyed.’
At the time, he said of the claims against him: ‘ The CBI knew about all these things and never once raised them with me as a disciplinary issue, until suddenly they all became grounds for immediate dismissal.’
Brian McBride, then president of the organisation, said during the row that year that Danker’s description of events had been ‘selective’. And McBride told the BBC that Danker was ‘welcome to take his case to an employment tribunal or the courts if he thinks he has been mistreated’. Danker hired leading employment lawyer Bruce Carr KC – author of a 2014 government- commissioned review of industrial legislation – to take on his case.
A CBI spokesman confirmed yesterday it had settled the legal action brought against it by Danker after his dismissal.
The spokesman said: ‘The CBI board has agreed an undisclosed settlement with Mr Danker.’ Danker declined to comment. The announcement comes as the CBI seeks to restore its fortunes under new president rupert Soames, a prominent City figure and former chief executive of outsourcing giant Serco.