Super Retail whistleblowers depart retailer
Three months after scandalous allegations were made against Super Retail Group, including an undisclosed affair, some of the whistleblowers have left the company.
Some of the female executives who made a string of allegations of improper workplace behaviour at Super Retail Group earlier this year, including claims of a secret affair between the chief executive and its chief human resources officer, have left the company, The Australian can confirm.
An unknown number of the executives – as many as four – no longer work for Super Retail, the owner of chains Rebel, Supercheap Auto, BCF and Macpac.
The retailer is yet to be served with legal documents by the aggrieved employees’ lawyers three months after the initial allegations were made public.
While the scandal surrounding Super Retail, its board and CEO Anthony Heraghty raged, the female executives remained at the company.
They made the allegations against the company as whistleblowers under the Corporations Act.
However, The Australian understands some, if not all, have now left.
It is not known whether the departed employees were paid compensation by Super Retail or reached any type of settlement in regard to their workplace claims.
Super Retail stunned the investment community in April when it outed itself as being accused of a long list of wrongs by several anonymous employees.
The claims included allegations of an undisclosed affair between Mr Heraghty and then head of HR, Jane Kelly, as well as improper workplace behaviour such as bullying, excessive workloads and improper use of company travel.
Ms Kelly was not one of the executives who made the complaints, and she left Super Retail late last year after working for the retailer for more than seven years.
The battle between the aggrieved female staff, represented by specialist workplace law firm Harmers, and Super Retail played out in the public domain, with claims and counterclaims aired.
After Super Retail conducted its own investigation into the workplace issues, it cleared the CEO and found he had no case to answer. It also denied any relationship between Mr Heraghty and Ms Kelly.
A spokesman for Harmers on Monday said there was “nothing to report” on the issue.
A spokesman for Super Retail declined to comment.
Super Retail, which has annual revenue of $4bn, previously said a potential court case and claim could cost as much as $50m, and it was trying to determine whether Harmers had lodged documents, including a statement of claim, or served the company with court papers, in the wake of allegations about behaviour at the Super Retail head office in Strathpine, Brisbane.
“The group expects the employees to jointly claim loss and damage in the range of $30m to $50m,” the April ASX statement said.
“Super Retail Group will defend any court proceedings in relation to the allegations.”
It added that the Super Retail board conducted a review and investigated the allegations but found no evidence.
“The board was supported by independent external advisers.
“The board’s review and investigations concluded that none of the allegations are substantiated.”
Harmers quickly hit back, revealing in late April it was representing four executives and that an “external informant” had come forward with new details of an affair between its CEO and human resources boss, claiming its board were aware of the secret relationship as early as December last year.
Harmers, a specialist workplace law firm that has carved out a niche in sexual harassment cases, claimed a third party, not connected to Super Retail, had come forward with “key evidence” of the undisclosed affair, which it had put to the retailer.
“We are confident that other current and former Super Retail staff will support our clients’ claims,” Harmers said in its statement.
“The board of Super Retail has allegedly known of the relationship since December 2023 – despite Super Retail’s strident denials of that very relationship until as recently as this month.”
Harmers said in its statement that it had also offered to confidentially settle the matter for sums less than one third of the dollar amounts in the Super Retail announcement in April – indicating a settlement of around $10m. Mediation talks failed to resolve the issue, however, with Super Retail standing by its CEO and denying the damaging workplace claims.
In May, Mr Heraghty appeared at a Macquarie Group conference where he ruled out taking questions on potential legal action by staffers, including allegations of the “non-disclosure” of a relationship with Ms Kelly.
Ahead of a question-and-answer session at the Macquarie Australia Conference and after his presentation about the company’s strategy, he said he would not take questions about the company’s statement to the ASX in April about “potential litigation that the company faces around employment”.
Super Retail shares closed up 1.4 per cent at $14.72 on Monday and are up 2.4 per cent since the company first revealed the issue in April.
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