SINGAPORE: A man sued SAP Asia and won the case with a High Court decision in his favour dated January 21. However, Prashant Mudgal was awarded the nominal amount of S$1,000 although he sued the company for nearly S$5 million for alleged loss of earnings from 2020 until mid-2025.
Mr Mudgal had worked as head of services sales for SAP’s Ariba line in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region, but by the end of 2019, he had been dismissed from the company.
Justice Dedar Singh Gill found that the outcome of the performance improvement plan (PIP) that was imposed on Mr Mudgal prior to his termination had been predetermined, and that he had not, in actuality, been given the chance to improve his work performance.
Nevertheless, the judge also pointed to Mr Mudgal’s part in his eventual dismissal, which is why he only granted a nominal amount.
Prashant Mudgal vs SAP
Mr Mudgal’s problems with the company was largely due to his ‘strained‘ relationship with a colleague, Otsakchon Raman, who was the head of services delivery for SAP’s Ariba line for the same areas, plus Greater China, Mothership reported.
In July 2018, one of the staff members working under Ms Raman was moved to the team under Mr Mudgal. As a replacement could not be found, one of Ariba’s clients grew dissatisfied that the particular staff member was leaving.
In an email exchanges, Mr Mudgal accused Ms Raman’s team of “gross incompetence,” accusations that Ms Raman reported to senior management, while he also criticised Ms Raman’s leadership and integrity.
When he was asked to apologise for the emails, he declined.
By November 2018, the company’s senior leaders agreed to terminate him. The news of his termination was reported to Adele Teo-Gomez, SAP Asia’s human resources business partner by the company’s global vice-president of services sales, Charmaine Seabury. The latter proposed, however, that Mr Mudgal be given a final warning before his dismissal.
He was then given a 45-day performance improvement plan on March 21, 2019, which ended on May 5. Ms Seabury, along with her supervisor, said that they believed he had merely gone along with the PIP’s requirements.
She said she wanted him to be dismissed as soon as possible, which happened on Nov 21, 2019, and took effect at the end of that year.
The judge found that, despite Mr Mudgal’s improved performance, and because Ms Seabury wanted him dismissed as soon as possible, he was never really given a “genuine opportunity to improve”. The judge also cited emails between the company’s senior leaders as proof that the decision regarding Mr Mudgal’s employment after the PIP had been predetermined.
The judge also said that Mr Mudgal, however, did not prove that the company was responsible for his loss of income in the past five years. Mr Mudgal had said that despite applying to over 300 jobs, he had not found employment from 2020 to 2023.
Justice Dedar added, “He was, to a large extent, the author of his own misfortunes that culminated in the termination of his employment.” /TISG
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