A former employee of the British gas exploration company, BG Group, has brought a constructive dismissal claim before a UK Employment Tribunal. The former Regional HR Advisor, John Flexman, resigned abruptly in June 2011 following a dispute with his employer relating to his use of the professional social networking site, LinkedIn.

Mr Flexman was accused of “inappropriate use of social media” after he was found to be in breach of a company policy on conflicts of interest which prevents employees from ticking a ‘career opportunities’ box on the site. He had also uploaded his CV which included confidential information relating to the company’s human resources. Furthermore, BG Group disputed suggestions in Mr Flexman’s CV that he had brought about a reduction in staff attrition.

Mr Flexman claims that 21 of his colleagues had also ticked the ‘career opportunities’ box without being disciplined and that any company details he posted were publicly available in the company’s annual reports.

BG Group maintains that it has no difficulty with employees posting their CV on LinkedIn and that it was derogatory statements made by Mr Flexman that led to the dispute between the parties. Against this, Mr Flexman claims that the company had “inadequate and ineffective global resource planning” and “lacked active talent management”.

The case is the first notable constructive dismissal claim involving a LinkedIn account. An increase in such cases is widely anticipated and it will therefore be interesting from a legal perspective to see how it is ultimately determined. While the decision of the UK Employment Tribunal will not be directly applicable in Ireland, it may be persuasive authority before an Irish court or employment tribunal.

It is also worth noting that many employee contracts contain wide definitions of what constitutes an intellectual property right and it may only be a matter of time before contacts obtained by virtue of activity on networking sites such as LinkedIn become encompassed within such definitions.

Employers must develop policies that will fully enable them to respond to the challenges posted by social networks, particularly those such as LinkedIn, where employees by virtue of their connection with a company can build a database of clients.

Contributed by Catherine O’Flynn.

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