The former chief executive of Britain’s largest estate agency has won his employment tribunal claims for unfair dismissal and age discrimination against Skipton Building Society.
David Livesey, 67, who spent 33 years at Connells before leaving the business in 2023, brought legal action against Skipton, which owns Connells.
Livesey sought damages reportedly worth £7m, alleging he had been forced out after being bullied by Skipton chief executive Stuart Haire. The tribunal dismissed the bullying allegation but upheld his claims of unfair dismissal and age discrimination.
The tribunal also found Livesey had been treated less favourably over the valuation of his Connells shareholding. He received just 46p for shares that had cost him £420,000, while another director with a smaller stake received more than £1.6m.
In its judgment, the tribunal concluded that the less favourable treatment over Livesey’s shares “was not justified”.
Skipton Building Society said it was “disappointed” with the tribunal’s decision.
A hearing on quantum is scheduled for October.
David Livesey said of the ruling: “This is a landmark case which has exposed the Skipton board’s flawed decision making and its dismissive attitude towards many gifted and capable Connells staff.
“The numbers speak for themselves. In the three years since Stuart Haire (current Skipton Group CEO) was recruited by Gwyn Burr (current Skipton Chair), every single director of the Connells board has left. Across the Connells and Skipton boards there have been 21 director resignations. Connells has had no less than five chairs. Plus five heads of compliance and has incurred a S.166 order from the FCA. Beyond the senior management, hundreds of staff have left Connells during the current Skipton Board’s tenure, causing immense damage to Connells’ business. All of this has meant that this year, for the first time in over 30 years, Connells is likely to make a loss
“My case is about principle – if concerned people don’t take a stand, good businesses are damaged. I also feel I have a duty to ensure that when loyal and talented staff are mistreated by their employers and discriminated against, those responsible are held to account.
“ Skipton’s splashing out on TV advertising, with its slogan “founded on fairness”, is laughable! The tribunal’s finding of age discrimination against a 64-year-old will no doubt raise an eyebrow among Skipton’s 1.2 million savers of a similar average age!
“I also believe that, for institutions like Skipton, these findings raise serious regulatory concerns about some of the most senior people at Skipton, which should be of significant interest to the Building Society’s regulators . ”
Comments (11)
something very odd has been going on at Connells over the last 2/3 years with the leadership one by one leaving/moving on. I bet there’s something brewing here!
Reading this, what strikes me hardest isn’t the numbers. It’s that 33 years is long enough to build a family, not a business, and that family never got its goodbye. No leaving speech, no room of people who’d built it with him standing up to say what he meant to them, no chance for him to thank the staff who gave him three decades. Just ten minutes in a hotel room and it was over.
To be clear, this isn’t a criticism of whoever’s running Connells now. They inherited a mess they didn’t create and are trying to hold a damaged business together in a hard market. This is squarely about Haire and Burr, the people who made the decision and the people who made it possible. There will be people who see even that differently, and that’s fair enough. But whatever anyone thinks of the thirty-three years before it, nothing required the ending to happen the way it did. The tribunal itself found no potentially fair reason for it. And the post-Truss market now being used to explain away the wider damage was exactly the kind of downturn Connells was built to survive. It was born into a worse one, 1986 to 1994, and came through it. A proper conversation would have cost nothing. That chance was taken from both sides at once, deliberately, and it’s not something October’s remedy hearing can ever put right.
Tim – you are just so bitter … let it go son xxx
If you knew the story you wouldn’t be so condescending
Interesting
My experience of the company was a beautifully run business headed up by genuinely entrepreneurial leadership when it was just the Connells brand -tough but always fair and great fun
Its culture was ripped out by a new leadership team and everyone of them has recently been removed by the Skipton business-not one of them left -there has to be a bigger reason
Whilst I don’t know the new leadership they do seem to be heavy on looking after the front line staff in a challenging market
As for this gent -he can now focus on his other claim suing a water company for not putting out a fire on his grouse shooting moor as it’s ruined his fun
Didn’t know the Connells team well as I work for Countrywide, but whilst people still speak highly of the old team I can assure you that the new leadership are not looking after the front line. Endless cost cutting in the network and lots of changes across head office at the moment – all the internal communications paint a rosy picture but we have been here before and it is only going one way at the moment.
MajorTom1 … Tim W … you are just so bitter, let it go, being overlooked happens to everyone at some point !
I wasnt overlooked—that I would forgive
I was blatantly lied to and that’s a thing in my world I will never forgive -not without an apology
Looks like Karma has delivered it to me -sort off
Very interesting. The in house grievance procedure is laughable. Many people have left there because of bullying without the capability of taking the monster on. It still goes on today under the watchful eye of management.
Interesting to see these frustrations aired publicly, so many will be in agreement. The loss of talent and egotistical leadership is hurting the Group
Congratulations to David on seeing this through to a successful conclusion – when I read the judgement I expect to find reference to cantilevers in there!
PS Skipton did not acquire Connells Group in 2010!!