Super Retail Group (ASX: SUL) - the parent company to Rebel, Macpac, Supercheap Auto and BCF - is under fire from Harmers Workplace Lawyers over its “deliberate misrepresentation” of a document relating to an impending court case over the company’s governance.
On Friday, Super Retail (SRG) released a statement via ASX saying it expects a court case to be launched against them regarding allegations that includes the non-disclosure of a relationship between group managing director and CEO Anthony Heraghty and the former chief human resources officer Jane Kelly.
Other expected allegations, according to the SRG announcement, include inappropriate company travel; bullying, victimisation and adverse treatment; particular employees in the corporate team having unreasonable workloads, insufficient resources and restricted access to information; and unsatisfactory company record management.
A new statement today by Harmers confirmed that the firm is now acting for four clients who are whistleblowers against SRG.
“Since Friday’s announcement, we have been approached by a further number of current and ex-employees with similar concerns,” the statement read. “We are confident that other current and former SRG staff will support our clients’ claims.
"A third party, not associated with SRG, has now also come forward to us with key evidence about the previously undisclosed personal relationship between SRG’s CEO, Anthony Heraghty and his former direct report, and SRG’s former CHRO, Jane Kelly.
“Our two clients, who we assume Friday’s ASX announcement was aimed at, have each made Protected Disclosures within the meaning of the Corporations Act, within recent months, to the non-conflicted members of the SRG Board and, in one case, to SRG’s external auditor at the time, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“Friday’s ASX announcement, and subsequent media coverage initiated by SRG, amounts to victimisation of these whistleblowers, and is causing them additional damage.”
For this reason, two of the whistleblowers have given notice to the company of the need for Emergency Disclosure under the Corporations Act in the interests of their safety, Harmers reported. Emergency Disclosure means a party must not disclose any more information than is reasonably necessary regarding a particular subject.
The Harmers statement continued, saying one of its clients had supplied SRG with a draft of a proposed Statement of Claim, which reportedly raises a range of “serious governance and conduct issues” within the company. According to Harmers, the document has been "selectively misrepresented" by SRG in its ASX announcement on Friday.
“Only one aspect of the governance issues raised in the draft statement of claim relates to the personal relationship referred to within SRG’s announcement. However, SRG seems exclusively focused on this issue.
“For clarity, SRG as recently as this month denied the existence of any such relationship of any kind. When Harmers pointed out that it had clear proof of an intimate relationship, and thus a significant unreported conflict of interest, SRG’s position immediately shifted.
“As of last Friday, SRG revealed to certain of its staff that a relationship does now exist between Mr Heraghty and Ms Kelly – but SRG now alleges only from January 2024. However, even from that date, such a relationship carried significant conflicts of interest.”
Harmers noted that one of its clients made a whistleblower complaint in November 2023, via the internal whistleblower platform Whispli, concerning the longer term existence of the relationship and its impact on governance issues – but alleged that the complaint was removed from the integrity officer and the head of risk and given to HR management answering directly to Kelly.
“The whistleblower who has served the draft Statement of Claim has provided a medical report and detailed calculations, relating to loss of potential income, justifying the quantum of the claim,” Harmers continued. “Also, our clients offered to confidentially settle this matter for sums less than one third of the dollar amounts in the SRG announcement.”
The announcement by SRG on Friday indicated that it expected a joint claim loss and damage in the range of $30 million to $50 million.
“SRG is well aware that this is not a “shakedown”, but a justifiable legal claim for damages, being deliberately misrepresented. Friday’s announcement had a material impact on SRG’s share price throughout the day.
“SRG has been well aware for over a week of the information it released last Friday, yet it waited. The Board of SRG has allegedly known of the relationship since December 2023 – despite SRG’s strident denials of that very relationship until as recently as this month.”
Harmers added that the announcement also failed to disclose that the litigation will extend to Heraghty personally as the CEO.
“That information appears to have been separately provided to the media and not the ASX, and appears only in more recent articles. That does not coincide with our understanding of continuous disclosure obligations under the ASX Listing Rules and the Corporations Act.”
Ragtrader reached out to Super Retail Group for comment, with the company referring this publication back to its Friday ASX statement.