Ryar wrote: ↑Tue Jan 04, 2022 3:31 am
west52keep64 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:32 pm
The thing is, he's already left RB, and the court can hardly order him to stop working at AM and return to RB. The likely outcome is some kind of financial penalty for breach of contract, but normally with this sort of thing the employer would need to demonstrate some kind of financial loss. I'm not sure how they would do this.
I expect AM would probably be willing to help him out with any financial penalty he receives.
The contractual obligations have to be served if one party doesn't want to let go the contractual terms. These contracts are designed within the employment labor law framework and courts don't overrule them if the employee had agreed to sign in at the time of joining or had agreed to any changes in contract during the course of employment.
Fallows hasn't started working at AM yet. Neither has he departed RB yet. RB doesn't want Fallows to come back and work for them. They just want him to go on gardening leave (1.5 years) and then serve 6 months notice period and depart.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/dan-fallo ... xit-court/
A report in Motorsport Week now states the matter is being heard in the England and Wales High Court, and that the initial hearing held on December 17 went in Red Bull’s favour.
He has been taken to court for breach of contract. The contract stated he needed to continue to work his notice period, but he has already left RB, so it's a done thing. The court cannot order him to fulfil the contractual obligations, there's no mechanism to do that. That outcome would also mean he would have to return to working for RB and they would have to continue paying him until July 2023. Again, that's simply not possible, you can't force someone to work somewhere just because they signed a contract. All RB can do is seek to recover their financial losses that resulted from the breach of contract and possibly secure an injunction to block him from working somewhere else.
Once the court makes an order, either way, it's likely to be done and dusted and he will be free to join AM. There's a slim chance RB could secure an injunction to prevent him working anywhere else... but one that lasts until July 2023? Seems incredibly unlikely.
EDIT: Here's the source that confirms he left RB:
The court documents, seen by MotorsportWeek.com, report that Fallows was removed from the Formula 1 operations and deployed within Red Bull Technologies to work on the road car division, which is actually working with Aston Martin on a joint project called the Valkyrie. His contract allowed for such changes in his job description.
Fallows was unhappy with this and raised a grievance, which was rejected and was not appealed. A month later, Fallows left Red Bull with immediate effect.
Red Bull then sought a declaration that the defendant was not constructively dismissed, but resigned, and his contract and its minimum terms “remained and remains in full force and effect”.
https://www.motorsportweek.com/2022/01/ ... on-martin/