£1.6m payout | Sacking of exec over pandemic pay cut concerns proves extremely costly

An executive who was sacked after raising concerns about his company making pay cuts during the pandemic has been awarded £1.6million compensation by an employment tribunal.

Vlad Zabelin, a £180,000-a-year UK-based Chief Investment Officer at SPI Group, was sacked by billionaire boss Yuri Shefler after Zabelin accused him of “using the pandemic as an excuse to make adverse decisions against staff” despite the firm, which produced Stolichnaya vodka, still performing strongly.