A direct instruction to read one short policy went ignored - and it decided the case
A veteran banker said he was drowning in work. The Fair Work Commission still upheld his sacking.
A National Australia Bank business banking manager has lost his unfair dismissal case, after the Fair Work Commission found the bank was entitled to dismiss him for repeatedly failing to report overdue financial covenants and for refusing a direct instruction to read the policy that governed them.
In a decision issued on August 6, 2026, the Commission dismissed the application and ruled the dismissal was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable.
The worker moved into a senior business banking role in September 2024 and took on the bank's broker-introduced customers. His pay rose from $135,000 to $165,000. He said he felt underwater almost immediately - working up to 18 hours a day, weekends included, and struggling with new systems and a heavy workload.
The relationship deteriorated quickly. He was placed on a performance plan within weeks. In November 2024 he received a first and final written warning over casual emails to brokers and for contacting them outside business hours. In February 2025 came a second and final warning, this one tied to overdue financial covenants - the reporting checks banks use to monitor risk on their lending.
That covenant issue is what decided the case. The February warning came with a direction: read the covenants policy and confirm he had done so. He refused. Asked by the Commissioner why, he said it was on his union's advice. Because he had not read the policy, he did not know overdue financial covenants had to be reported to the credit team within 14 days. He believed he had 21. When another client's covenants fell due that month, he missed the reporting deadline again.
The bank treated the pattern as misconduct - repeated policy breaches and a failure to follow a lawful and reasonable direction - and dismissed him in late May 2025.
His case was that this was really a performance problem relabelled as misconduct once the bank had decided to let him go, partly in response to his complaints about workload. He also argued the client had been taken off his portfolio before the deadline, so he would have reported on time regardless.
The Commission did not accept that. It found he was never going to meet the deadline and described the explanation as self-serving. It was satisfied there was a valid reason for the dismissal, that he had been notified of the reason, and that he had ample opportunity to respond across several detailed letters. He also had a union support person at the relevant meetings.
The decision was not one-sided on the employer's conduct. The Commissioner said his manager was likely abrasive and held very high expectations, and found the November warning "grossly disproportionate" to the breach - the broker emails, she noted, were not offensive, just over-familiar attempts to build rapport. But that early warning was not the reason for the dismissal.
The worker had offered to drop back to his old, more junior role. The Commission held the bank was under no obligation to find him one. He had applied for the senior position, was not set up to fail, and his pay rise reflected its seniority. When he fell short, the bank was entitled to dismiss.
The covenants policy ran to seven pages - short enough, the Commissioner remarked, to read over a coffee. Financial covenants were "bread and butter work," she said, not a discretionary task. His failure to read and understand the policy, as directed, was "his undoing."
The Commission found the dismissal was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable and dismissed the application.
