A British employment tribunal has ruled in favour of a former Bank of China (BOC) employee in a labour dispute after she accused it of tax evasion, inadequate loan provision and false accounting at its London branch.
Chong Lai Wah, a Hong Kong-born British national and former manager of the branch's accounts department, claimed she had been disciplined and then wrongfully dismissed from the bank in November 2001 after raising her concerns with senior management and BOC head office.
The London Central Employment Tribunal held eight days of hearings into Mrs Chong's dismissal in April and November last year before making the preliminary ruling. It found her claims on issues including alleged tax evasion and false accounting were protected disclosures, which meant she could not be fired for speaking out against the bank.
Among the issues raised was whether the branch falsified records of a GBP2.2 million (HK$27.6 million) profit from gold-swap transactions in 1997 to evade taxes.
'It seems to us that the applicant had a reasonable belief that the gold-swap transaction matter was a deliberate attempt to avoid a potential corporation tax liability, or at least an attempt to deter payment of corporation tax,' the ruling said. However, it added that it was debatable whether a corporation tax should have be paid.
The tribunal also found the branch to have breached its own internal rules and the 1987 British Banking Act by delaying making adequate provisions for a doubtful loan to Minmetals (UK), a subsidiary of a state-owned Chinese firm between 1999 and 2000.