PPC is applying for leave to appeal a labour court ruling ordering it to hand over a top secret forensic report that a former employee alleges contains details of who is responsible for leaking market-sensitive information to the media in 2017.
The labour court informed the cement maker’s legal team on February 3 that it must provide Siobhan McCarthy, PPC’s former head of corporate affairs, with a forensic investigation report it commissioned after complaints she made against the company’s former CFO Tryphosa Ramano.
McCarthy has been embroiled in several legal disputes with PPC ever since the company dismissed her in November 2018 in a process she says was initiated in retaliation for blowing the whistle on alleged media leaks by Ramano.
The February 3 ruling relates to an unfair dismissal case by McCarthy, which she originally won at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), but that later ended up in the labour court. As part of that process McCarthy requested that PPC be ordered to hand over the forensic report as she argues it will shed light on whether Ramano was behind the alleged leaks and prove whether she was dismissed in retaliation for making protected disclosures about the issue.
PPC filed legal papers on February 15, applying for leave to appeal the ruling that it hand over the forensic report to McCarthy. While Business Day has seen the legal papers outlining PPC’s application for leave to appeal, the company’s CEO Roland van Wijnen also confirmed it to Business Day.
“It was decided that the company makes use of its legal right to apply for leave to appeal,” Van Wijnen said in an email.
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PPC’s legal papers show that the cement giant believes its appeal has reasonable prospects of success as it argues the court erred in making its ruling to hand over the forensic report, which was prepared by digital forensics company Exactech, as it says it is irrelevant to McCarthy’s labour dispute.
It also wants the court to reconsider its finding that it should prove it dismissed McCarthy as part of a large-scale retrenchment exercise by supplying a list of employees it contemplated retrenching at the time of her dismissal as well as the identities of those whose jobs were actually made redundant.
“The veracity of the applicant’s protected disclosure is irrelevant because the applicant’s case is that it is the mere making of a protected disclosure that led to her dismissal and not the veracity of the alleged protected disclosure,” PPC’s court papers read.
McCarthy has alleged in other court papers that her dismissal was in retaliation for her making protected disclosures to senior company executives claiming that Ramano had allegedly leaked information about planned merger talks involving rival AfriSam. The alleged leaks are said to have resulted in articles being published in about August 2017 that contained price sensitive information before PPC making a formal public disclosure on the talks.
Both PPC and Ramano have repeatedly stated that the allegations are false and are jointly suing McCarthy for defamation in a separate case lodged in May 2019. Yet, Ramano parted ways with PPC on November 1, 2019 after eight years with the company.
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