EMRC Complaint against the Board of Directors.

Report to the members regarding EMRC complaint to the Board.

I know many of you have been keen to know what progress was being made in respect of the complaint which the East Midlands Committee lodged with the Board regarding the circumstances surrounding Colin Butler’s departure and subsequent non-attendance at last year’s AGM.  The Board were unable to agree to our suggestion to have the complaint judged by a panel of members selected from the Regions and recommended using the services of a firm called Sports Resolution, a company which specialises in sports disputes.  Unfortunately this made the whole thing rather legalistic when we had envisaged that matters would be resolved by  something more akin to a peer review but after nearly a year and countless hours spent compiling paperwork (2 rain forests worth, at least) the matter was finally heard at an arbitration hearing last week and whilst the route was not what we would have wanted originally the benefits to the members are that the recommendations flowing from the award now have much more weight which will guarantee that they are put into effect. 

EMRC have been critical for some time of the current legal structure of the company not least because its inadequacies can contribute to complaints such as ours.  The Board also acknowledge that it needs to be changed but their current proposals in the form of the resolution proposed at this year’s AGM do not fully address the issues highlighted.  This award highlights the inadequacies and more importantly gives instruction for change.  We see this as a huge benefit to the members of the association.

You can all read for yourselves the full content of the arbitration award (see the link below) but the positive things which we think have come out of it can be summarised as follows:

 

1. The arbitration process has identified some serious flaws in the present system as set out in para 36 (3) and (4) and it is the flaws in the system which lead to the vast majority of members being left out of the decision making process and is a  contributory factor in disputes such as this. 

 

2. The decision of the Board to publish their denial supported by an article from Laura Saunsbury is described as a major error of judgment as it gives a slanted view without giving a right of reply

 

3. Laura Saunsbury’s article (Pull June 2012) itself is heavily criticised for its lack of impartiality and for not providing the reader with a balanced view of the events of the meeting.  It also failed to identify that Colin had acted entirely within the Articles of Association and would have been numerically certain to win had he attended the AGM

 

4. The award (para 34) confirms “Mr Butler had not done anything whatsoever that was wrong.  Any suggestion that he was acting in an underhand manner was simply wrong”

 

5. It also makes it clear that the Board members in giving their personal opinions did nothing wrong either and that Colin still had the right to attend the AGM if he chose to do so.

 

All of the above points are extracted from the award document itself.  For the full transcript of the Arbitration Award please click the link for Sports Resolution website.

SPORTS RESOLUTIONS WEBSITE LINK : CLICK HERE

Janet Stennett - East Midlands CPSA Chair.