In the case of Glenn Cowie v Vesuvius plc (a FTSE 250 firm) and others, Mr Cowie won his claim for age discrimination, victimisation, and unfair dismissal. The hearing took place before Employment Judge Adkin at the London Central Employment Tribunal.

Mr Cowie was sacked and replaced with a younger woman after his company, Vesuvius, implemented a new policy that encouraged managers not to hire people over the age of 45 years.

In 1981, whilst living in South Africa, Mr Cowie commenced employment in the business as a laboratory assistant.

In 2014, he was promoted to Global Business Unit President of Foseco International – one of the four divisions of Vesuvius plc. He was based in the United States. The Tribunal heard that at this time, it was noted by the renumeration committee that:

“Glenn is an experienced leader, has shown capacity to deliver positive results and is showing a strong dynamism in leading Foundry. He is a key asset for the Group. It is planned to award him a significant increase of 15 per cent.”

At this time, Mr Cowie’s salary was £300,000 per annum – but his package was said to be significantly higher.

In 2017, Mr Patrick Andre was appointed to the position of Chief Executive Officer to whom Mr Cowie then reported directly. Immediately prior to this Mr Cowie and Mr Andre had been peers and Mr Andre was just three years younger than Mr Cowie.

In late 2017, Mr Andre gave Mr Cowie the personal objective of dismissing Mr Chris Young, Global HR, VP Foundry. Mr Young was 58 years old at that time. Mr Young is a dual British and American citizen and had been covering a global role as well as VP HR for North America, for the Foundry business.

Mr Andre believed that Mr Young should be replaced by a higher calibre employee with a more international outlook – but this instruction caused Mr Cowie disquiet and he did not carry it out. The Tribunal were shown documents describing Mr Young as “an effective performer” and “very successful.”

Ultimately, a Mr Ryan Van der Aa carried out the instruction to dismiss Mr Young and took over the position - having been demoted from the position of Global HR for Vesuvius in London.

In 2018, Mr Andre insisted that Mr Cowie move to the UK.

Early in 2018, Mr Cowie attended a meeting of company executives - conducted by Mr Andre in Brazil. Mr Cowie told the Tribunal that Mr Andre addressed the meeting saying:

“These new millennials will never stop pushing until they have my job and you older guys have to get used to it.”

During the meeting, there was a discussion about HR matters when the resignation of a 30-year-old director - introduced by Mr Andre - had arisen. Mr Andre was upset about the resignation and according to Mr Cowie told him that he was “an old fogey who doesn't know how to manage millennials.” Mr Cowie stated that he remembered this comment as it was ‘out of the blue and inappropriate.”

The Tribunal heard that Mr Andre emailed Mr Cowie in May 2018, pushing for any new recruits to be a maximum age of 45 years old.

In September 2018 Mr Andre decided that Mr Cowie was not performing well enough in his role and that he had six months to improve. He acquainted the board with this but did not communicate it to Mr Cowie.

In October 2018 - the same month that Mr Cowie moved back to the UK - an executive search agency was employed to find a potential replacement for him. The Tribunal were told that Mr Andre decided to sack Mr Cowie in February 2019, but this decision was not discussed with Mr Cowie until August 2019. Mr Cowie was then told 'it's not working' and that his employment would be terminated.

Mr Cowie stated:

“Patrick has brazenly embarked on an unlawful campaign of getting rid of older employees and replacing them with under 45-year-old staff as per emails and direct instructions to recruiting companies not to employ staff over aged 45.

These blatant written instructions are on the record and show an institutional and deep prejudice against older employees. These comments are a direct smoking gun.”

Mr Cowie then instituted Tribunal proceedings.

Employment Judge Adkin said:

“The policy about recruiting under 45 years was something very close to a rule across whole levels of management, to which there were occasional exceptions.

This degree of focus explicitly on age so far aware from a more typical retirement age we find is unusual and potentially suggestive of a mindset where assumptions were made about people and their abilities because of their age.

We are not satisfied that 'performance' is the entire explanation for the decision to dismiss as it crystallised in Mr Andre's mind in February 2019.

We find that age was one of the factors which lead Mr Andre to the decision to dismiss.”

A remedy hearing has been listed in May 2022.

Andreas White - Employment Partner at Kingsley Napley LLP - remarked that the case should warn managers to be ‘very careful in their language’.

He said:

“It’s been over 15 years since age discrimination was outlawed in the UK, yet the sort of ageist attitudes and comments in the workplace that occurred here remain far too common… ageist discriminatory remarks, whether applied to older or younger members of the workplace, should be challenged. The fact that in this case, the ‘old fossil’ remark came from the CEO, only serves to illustrate the scale of the problem. Any such comments can be relied on in evidence to demonstrate the culture of an organisation, particularly when used by C-suite executives.”