CEO Fined Sh1.2 Million Over ‘One Stand’ With Employee

A cool Sh1.2 million has been awarded to a former employee of IT Pawa Solutions by the Employment and Labour Relations Court. This is after the CEO got himself into double trouble.

The case read like a corporate thrilled by some Hollywood writer. It all unfolded after an evening of merriment at Nairobi’s Orchid Club on January 14, 2023. The night ended not with a gentle Uber ride home, but with allegations that would make any HR professional break out in a cold sweat.

The female employee’s testimony painted a distressing picture. She stated that after the party, while retrieving her bag from the back seat of the CEO’s car in the RFUEA Grounds car park, the executive assaulted her. Tipsy and disoriented, she described feeling powerless to resist. The scene was discovered by a concerned colleague who, after waiting for her at the club entrance, found her distressed and in tears. The night culminated in a frantic, and initially fruitless, trip to St. Peter’s Hospital in Muthiga, where she was turned away for lacking a police report.

The CEO’s version of events, however, could have been titled The Perils of Being a Charming (and Married) Man. In his telling, he was the victim of an awkward, alcohol-fueled misunderstanding. He claimed the employee was the one who became inappropriately tactile, touching his ears and head during the drive to the club. Later, when helping her get her bag, he alleged she wrapped her arms around his waist and, once inside the car, began “touching and fondling” him, causing the startled CEO to make a hasty retreat. His wife, he was sure to note, was conveniently still inside the club, presumably settling the bill.

Justice Stella Rutto, playing the role of a no-nonsense reality check, found the CEO’s story to be about as consistent as a weak Wi-Fi signal. She found it “highly improbable” that the woman would embark on a “fun trip” to two different hospitals in the span of a few hours if nothing had happened.

If the night itself was a he-said-she-said, the following days provided the evidence that tipped the scales. Instead of maintaining a dignified and professional silence, the CEO decided to engage in what he would later, rather hopefully, describe as “humour.”

Days after the incident, he sent a message accusing the employee of “ghosting” him after their “one-night stand” and, in a move of breathtaking audacity, inquiring if his “performance was dismal.” When she denied leaving a lipstick in his car and reminded him of their agreement to pretend “as if nothing happened,” he replied with the kind of casual amnesia usually reserved for forgetting to take out the trash: “Oooh yes. I forgot.”

In his defense, the CEO claimed this bizarre strategy was a cunning plan to “make her open up.” He even argued that a sexually explicit video he sent was all in good fun, as he had also forwarded it to his wife and others. The court, however, was not buying what he was selling. Justice Rutto saw the messages for what they were: not humour, but the “worst form of gender-based violence in the workplace.”

The judge ruled that the combination of the traumatic event and the CEO’s subsequent inappropriate messages created a hostile and intolerable work environment, forcing the employee to resign. The court awarded her Sh1.2 million in compensation for the sexual harassment and unfair treatment.

In a final twist of the knife, the judge dismissed the company’s audacious Sh6.5 million counterclaim against the employee, ensuring the story’s moral was clear: in the modern workplace, the cost of a failed “joke” and a complete lack of professional boundaries can be astronomically higher than any fictional damages. The ruling serves as a expensive but necessary memo to executives everywhere: your company WhatsApp is not your personal dating app.