Guinness Slammed With N200m Lawsuit For Wrongful Termination Of Appointment

Daniel Ojukwu

A former distribution manager at Guinness Nigeria Plc, Bright Nwosu, has sued the firm’s parent company, Diageo for wrongful termination of appointment.

He is seeking a N200m compensation as damages for unlawful sacking.

The matter has been filed at the National Industrial Court in Port Harcourt.

Other defendants in the suit are the firm’s Port Harcourt West Branch Area Manager, Chijioke Ebirinwa; East Branch Area Manager, Emeka Onuoha, and the Head of Division, East Nigeria, Elvis Okafor.

Legal counsel to Nwosu, Benn Uzozie, said he was confident of getting justice for his client.

Uzozie said, “We are in court because of what we call a conspiracy of silence of Diageo Company, London, the parent company of Guinness Nigeria Plc, against our client, a Nigerian. The kind of maltreatment meted out to our client cannot be done to any British employee.

“Here in Nigeria, you find most of these multinationals handling issues like this. We wrote to them; we appealed to them to resolve this issue. He made a complaint to them to resolve this issue. We exhausted all the local remedies within the Diageo network.

“But because of what we call conspiracy of silence, they buried all the complaints and that is why we are in court. We are before Hon. Justice Ogbuanya and I are sure that the court will do justice to it. We are just here because of the conspiracy of silence and nothing more. Our client’s appointment was unlawfully terminated and that is what we want the court to determine.”

The court fixed March 31, 2020 for hearing.