Jackie Henderson has initiated legal action against ARN in the Federal Court, seeking over $82 million compensation.
ARN disputes the claim and intends to defend it.
Jackie claims in her court filing that the termination of her contract constituted an “adverse action” under Section 340 of the Fair Work Act. The lawsuit alleges that the termination of the contract amounted to a repudiation of her agreement.
Lawyers for Jackie also claim that ARN’s stock exchange announcement on March 3 “included isleadning and deceptive statements” under Australian Consumer Law.
Jackie is claiming compensation of at least $82,250,000 million.
In a statement to the stock exchange ARN says it “cannot reliably estimate the outcome or any potential financial impact” of the legal action.
Section 340, a civil remedy provision of the Fair Work Act, says:
(1) A person must not take adverse action against another person:
(a) because the other person:
(i) has a workplace right; or
(ii) has, or has not, exercised a workplace right; or
(iii) proposes or proposes not to, or has at any time proposed or proposed not to, exercise a workplace right; or
(b) to prevent the exercise of a workplace right by the other person.
(2) A person must not take adverse action against another person (the second person) because a third person has exercised, or proposes or has at any time proposed to exercise, a workplace right for the second person’s benefit, or for the benefit of a class of persons to which the second person belongs.
The full text of Section 340 of the Act is here (pdf file).
The dispute goes back to the beginning of February:
After a heated and tearful on air stoush between Kyle and Jackie on 19 February, Jackie was absent from the Kyle and Jackie O show the following week. During that time off air she met with content and human resources staff of ARN. A week later, on March 3, ARN issued a statement to the stock exchange saying that, after discussions with Jackie, her contract had been terminated.
ARN’s reasons for terminating Jackie’s contract were based on statements she made during the HR meeting, that she could not continue to work with Kyle Sandilands, according to the ASX release. ARN also suspended Kyle and gave him 14 days to show cause why his contract should not be terminated.
On 6 March, Jackie issued a statement contradicting ARN’s ASX release. It said:
“I am deeply saddened by the events of the past week and the possibility of the show ending. This has come as a shock to me, as it has to everyone else… The current media narrative does not reflect what actually occurred, and it has been truly heartbreaking to see how this has unfolded. At this stage, I am unable to say anything further, as I am addressing this through the appropriate legal channels.”
Since then Kyle has been very active, seeking to publicly reconcile with Jackie, saying he wants to be back on air, and finally beginning legal action on 23 March.
Jackie had not made any other public statements until today.
ANR shares have been relatively stable for the past month until this week, when a parcel of 3 million shares was bought at about 31 cents per share on 26 March. Today, in the first hour of trading since the latest announcement, the share price has dropped to 28 cents on trading so far of about 550,000 shares.
Previous reports:
I didn’t quit: Jackie O contradicts ARN’s stock exchange statement
ARN wanted Kyle to be “deliberately outrageous and often offensive” court documents reveal
“I’m not done. Not by a long way.” Kyle Sandilands vows to fight ARN termination
For all past reports choose links from the tag cloud below.