£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.

The London employment tribunal heard that SPI Group had slashed the pay of all 2,000 workers by 30% when the pandemic hit. Zabelin and his fellow executives all agreed to take the same salary reduction for a three month period.

Employees were later told that this pay cut would continue after the initial three months, and Zabelin called Shefler to express concern that the pandemic was being used as an excuse to slash pay.