CELESTINE RUTH EDEM VS KWARLEYZ GROUP & ANOR

INTRODUCTION[

1] The 1st Defendant is incorporated as a Group of Companies which includes 2nd Defendant.

2nd Defendant is a Hospitality company located at the Airport City, Accra.

The Plaintiff was employed on 19th November, 2020 as a Financial Controller for the 2nd Defendant effective 4th January, 2021. Her appointment was terminated on 6th August, 2021. The case raises several questions including whether the Plaintiff was employed by both 1st and 2nd Defendants, and whether an employee of a subsidiary company is necessarily an employee of its holding or parent company and as such 1st Defendant is a necessary and proper party to the proceedings.

Another question that arises is whether the Plaintiff’s appointment was wrongfully terminated.

PLAINTIFF’S PLEADINGS[2] The case of the Plaintiff as can be gathered from her pleadings is that she received an offer letter authored by the 2nd Defendant and dated 19th September, 2020 for the position of Financial Controller with the 2nd Defendant effective 4th January, 2021. According to Plaintiff, the offer letter had attached to it her contract of employment on the 1st Defendant’s letterhead.

It is the further case of the Plaintiff that after working for 7 months with the 2nd Defendant she received an email from the Legal Manager of the 1st Defendant, asking her to provide her Curriculum Vitae, Offer Letter and copy of contract and certificates for re-evaluation of her position.

After that, she received an email from the Defendants instructing her to cease working as the Financial Controller and refrain from accessing 2nd Defendant's information and hand over to the Chief Accountant to act in the interim until her position is re-evaluated. [3] According to Plaintiff, she was later invited to a meeting on 6th August, 2021 at which the Human Resource Manager, the Legal Manager and the Chief Executive Officer were present.

At the meeting, the Chief Executive Officer stated his unwillingness to work with her anymore because operational expenses had increased since her resumption as Financial Controller.

At the meeting, she was asked to hand over all company assets in her custody.

The plaintiff contends that no notice was given to her for the termination of her appointment and the reasons given for the termination were not valid. [4] The Plaintiff therefore claims against the defendants the following reliefs: 1. A declaration that the Plaintiff was neither negligent nor incompetent in her work as fina