How one employer kept fighting and won (after spending millions)
TechnologyOne has won a long-running unfair dismissal and “general protections” fight brought by former executive Behnam Roohizadegan, after a legal battle that began in 2016 and has now stretched across two trials and an appeal.
Speaking after the decision Ex CEO Adrian Di Marco said “This case should deeply concern Australian business, employers are today reluctant to manage employee conduct or performance because of the litigation risk and costs associated with defending these types of claims under the Fair Work Act.”
The dispute, in plain terms
Roohizadegan worked at TechnologyOne for about a decade, rising to lead the Victorian region. He was dismissed in May 2016 by founder Adrian Di Marco, who at the time was chief executive and later executive chairman.
Roohizadegan’s case, as reported and then litigated, was not simply that he was treated unfairly. He alleged he was targeted because he complained about workplace conduct and raised issues with senior leaders — claims that sit in the Fair Work Act’s “general protections” regime, where the question is whether adverse action was taken for a prohibited reason.
TechnologyOne’s position was that he was dismissed lawfully for performance and management reasons.
Why it took so long
The procedural history matters.
Roohizadegan initially won at a first trial, with the court ordering TechnologyOne to pay him $5.2 million in 2020. That result was overturned on appeal, and the case was sent back for a new trial.
The retrial was sprawling. The judgment describes a very large body of evidence, multiple claim “permutations”, extensive witness testimony, and a heavy focus on contemporaneous documents. The end point is that the employer succeeded across the board: the Federal Court dismissed all of Roohizadegan’s claims earlier today.
That pathway — win, appeal, retrial — is one of the clearest reasons this matter became a decade-long contest. But it also shows how litigation risk is not just about “who is right”, but about whether a case becomes procedurally and evidentially complex enough to run for years.
What the judge ultimately found
The judge accepted that Di Marco made the termination decision and found it was not made for unlawful reasons (such as because Roohizadegan had made complaints or exercised workplace rights). Instead, the court found TechnologyOne rebutted the Fair Work Act presumption and proved the dismissal was for lawful reasons related to performance and conduct.
A critical part of the employer’s story was that, by April 2016, Di Marco had lost confidence that Roohizadegan could lead the Victorian operation going forward. The court placed significant weight on evidence about business performance pressures, leadership and team dynamics.
“This was an executive earning $1 million per year who was dismissed because of performance issues,” Di Marco said in a statement. “How could this dispute end up in court ... taking two trials over 10 years, $10 million-plus to defend, over four weeks of court testimony for the last trial, and the plaintiff claiming $80 million in compensation.”
The judgment also canvasses allegations about bullying and internal conflict, but the court’s findings ultimately turned on why the decision-maker acted and whether the statutory tests were met — not on whether the dispute felt unfair or harsh to the applicant.
The cost and the cautionary message for employers
In the wake of the win, Di Marco argued that these kinds of claims can create a chilling effect on performance management because of the risk, duration and cost of litigation.
“This case should deeply concern Australian business,” he explained. “Employers are today reluctant to manage employee conduct
or performance because of the litigation risk and costs associated
with defending these types of claims under the Fair Work Act.”
That’s the paradox HR professionals wrestle with: the organisation may believe it has a defensible, even strong, case — yet still face years of distraction, reputational risk and legal expense before it is resolved.
Practical takeaways for HR leaders
This case reinforces a few themes that courts return to repeatedly in general protections and dismissal litigation.
First, contemporaneous documents can decide credibility. The judgment shows how closely the court tested competing recollections against emails, notes and internal records.
Second, identify the real decision-maker early and manage the evidence accordingly. Where the legal question is “why” a decision was made, the decision-maker’s evidence becomes central — and so does any material influence by others.
Third, even successful litigation can be a loss in time and cost. The fact that TechnologyOne ultimately succeeded did not change that the dispute consumed years, required multiple hearings, and generated substantial legal spend.
The bigger HR question: can this be avoided?
Not always. But HR teams can reduce the odds of a matter becoming a decade-long war by tightening process discipline at the pointy end: performance documentation that matches the story the business will later tell; careful handling of complaints running alongside performance issues; and clear, consistent communication about who is making decisions and why
