Commerzbank can pursue employee for fake sex assault claim

The High Court has ruled that a former Commerzbank AG analyst will face contempt of court proceedings after making false sexual assault allegations against a colleague as part of his failed harassment case against the bank.

Commerzbank AG v Z KB-2023-002913

Judge Eady said that it was important that allegations of making a false complaint go before the court.

The colleague against whom Ajao made the sexual harassment allegations is named only in the judgment as Q.

‘I am also clear that there is strong public interest in permitting the application in respect of the allegations of sexual, harassment and attempted sexual assault against Q’, she said.

Commerzbank’s application to bring contempt proceedings came after Ajao lost his Employment Tribunal claims of harassment, sexual harassment, victimisation and race discrimination in April.

Ajao, who was anonymised as Z earlier in proceedings until an anonymity order was revoked when the tribunal found his sexual assault allegations were false, accused Q of trying to grab his crotch. He also accused her of mistreating him because he refused Q’s sexual advances, Louis Browne KC of Exchange Chambers, representing Commerzbank, said.

The tribunal ordered Ajao to pay £20,000 in costs after it concluded that some of his allegations were ‘pure invention’ and that ‘the acts and events on which he relies did not happen’.

Judge Snelson said in the tribunal’s ruling that Ajao ‘rested claims on alleged facts which were at best so distorted or exaggerated as to bear no relation to real events and at worst simply invented’. The judge added that it was ‘hard to imagine a more obvious case of unreasonable conduct in the bringing and pursuit of litigation’.

Ahead of the judgment, Browne argued that there was a strong public interest, partly because Ajao tried to claim almost £130,000 in the tribunal and had therefore fabricated allegations for ‘purely personal gain’.

Judge Eady said that Ajao will face trial over the allegedly false allegations and accusations that he fabricated a work diary to support bogus claims. ‘I am satisfied that it is in accordance with the overriding objective and proportionate and in the public interest for this matter to proceed’, she said.

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