UK Edition
EY has been sued by a former employee who claims he was sacked by the Big Four accountant after taking holiday for his wedding.
Konrad Jeczewski, a former EY business consulting manager, has filed a legal claim against the company’s Australian arm after allegedly being made redundant two days after returning from his honeymoon.
The Melbourne-based accountant also claimed he was let go after complaining about 80-hour working weeks and going off sick with the flu.
EY, which operates as a global network of independent member firms, has denied any wrongdoing.
The former employee was among the 230 redundancies made across EY Oceania last November in response to a slowdown in the consulting sector.
An EY spokesman told the Australian Financial Review: “These difficult decisions were managed in a structured, comprehensive process that ensured fair, equitable and procedurally correct outcomes.”
However, Mr Jeczewski has since complained that he was the only person selected from six managers in EY’s finance consulting team in Melbourne.
In court documents filed with Australia’s Federal Court, he claimed this was partly because he took four and a half weeks of holiday between October and November last year for his wedding and honeymoon.
Mr Jeczewski, who joined EY in July 2021, made an internal complaint last September that senior managers and directors allegedly refused to give him new work because of the annual leave he had booked.
It followed several official complaints that Mr Jeczewski allegedly made to his bosses over his workload.
Mr Jeczewski made his first complaint in February 2023 after he was allegedly told to cancel all personal commitments and work as much as 80 hours a week on a new project.
He claimed that a senior EY manager threatened to give him a negative performance review if he refused.
Mr Jeczewski then filed another complaint two months later that EY allegedly slashed his workload and communications with senior managers and directors were reduced after his initial grievance.
The accountant complained again after he was allegedly rebuked for taking a week off sick last June having come down with the flu.
Mr Jeczewski said that another EY manager told him that leave “was not acceptable” while working on a client project and that he “let the team down”.
The complainant alleged to have been threatened again with a negative performance review “if he again dared to take sick leave during a job”.
An EY spokesman said: “EY has thoroughly considered the claim made and refutes all allegations.”