Deloitte lodges defence in $3.8m Federal Court discrimination case

Major firm Deloitte says a veteran Brisbane executive behind a $3.8m age discrimination case was told he was ‘expected’ to retire his partnership by age 62.

Big four advisory and accounting firm Deloitte says it has an “expectation” that partners retire at 62 years of age, but denies it requires them to leave the firm entirely.

In a defence filed in the Federal Court late last week, Deloitte said that Colin Brown, a 65-year-old Brisbane partner who has brought a $3.8m age discrimination suit against the firm, was informed of this expectation in April of 2019 – almost five years after he became a partner.

“The Applicant was informed with words to the effect that there was an expectation that partners of the First Respondent would retire following reaching age 62,” the defence read.

Deloitte partner Colin Brown

However, Deloitte went on to say that it denies “there was any obligation on the part of partners” to retire and that “there was any such obligation (by way of expectation) on the part of partners to do so, including under the Partnership Agreement.”

Instead, Deloitte said its practise was to discuss with each partner approaching 62 “the possibility of their retirement from the partnership by 31 May following their reaching the age of 62” as well as and “the possibility of their continuing engagement with the First Respondent following this time in a different capacity.”

Mr Brown is seeking compensation on the basis that Deloitte never informed him about its alleged retirement policy when he joined the company from Deloitte’s Mongolian arm as a non-equity partner in June 2014.

He says he was led to believe that he would be kept on as a partner for at least ten years and that Deloitte knew the alleged policy contravened age discrimination law, claiming that former head of audit and assurance Jamie Gatt told him that “the retirement age is not in the Partnership Agreement because it’s against the law”.

Deloitte is defending the action.

The Age Discrimination Act outlawed mandatory age-based retirement in 2004 but the big four mostly retain voluntary agreements with partners that they will retire between 55 and 60.

Mr Brown is seeking $3m in lost future wages and $809,000 lost wages due to his move from the Mongolian-based Deloitte Onch Audit LLC.

In December Federal Court Justice Angus Stewart dismissed sections of Mr Brown’s statement of claim that alleged he suffered from “distress and anxiety” after Deloitte assigned him to a lead role on a five-year contract with Rio Tinto without telling him he’d have to move into a consultant role on the project after reaching the age of 62.

Mr Brown said this should have been disclosed to the miner and in not doing so Deloitte caused him to “continue to suffer distress and anxiety as a result of the fact that he is not able to be open and honest with Rio Tinto and the senior executives of Rio Tinto.”

Deloitte has not removed Mr Brown as a partner of the firm and in its defence said he “continues and will continue as a partner”.

Because of this, Deloitte argues, the loss of future income claimed by Mr Brown “is wholly contingent and has not crystallised”.

Mr Brown claimed he had been treated as an “inactive partner” since last May with his profile removed from the company website, but Deloitte attributed that to “administrative error that needed to be manually rectified and which was rectified”.