When trying to shop with the employee discount for the benefit of a member of her family, a woman ended up being fired from IKEA in Spain. The case went to court and ended with confirmation of the disciplinary dismissal applied by the company.
According to the Spanish portal, belonging to the HuffPost portal, and according to information also reproduced by the newspapers La Vanguardia and 20 minutes, the worker allowed her sister to purchase products worth a total of 880 euros by paying just 151 euros, through the misuse of the discount reserved for staff at the Murcia store.
Internal rules and billing to third parties
The company’s internal policy allowed the discount to be used for purchases intended for the worker’s usual home or second home, as well as for gifts to family or friends. However, according to the resolution cited by Noticias Trabajo, purchases made to order from family or friends and the issuance of invoices in the name of third parties were expressly prohibited.
The case began when an invoice dated May 12, 2024 came to the attention of a customer service coordinator, who forwarded it to the security department. From there, the company opened an investigation and detected seven purchases with the same pattern between March 2023 and June 2024.
Continued fraud and the company’s decision
In the resignation letter, cited by Spanish sources, IKEA concluded that the worker had used a social benefit reserved for her own purchases, at the same time asking that invoices be issued with tax details and addresses different from hers. The company even spoke of a “commercial operation outside the company” and considered that the employee had given the discount “knowing of the fraud she was committing”.
The employee had worked at the company since 2006 and ended up being disciplinary dismissed with effect from July 10, 2024. The company classified the facts as very serious misconduct.
The arguments rejected by the judges
The worker contested the decision in court. He claimed, on the one hand, that the absences were already prescribed, because the cashiers processed the purchases and could see that the invoices were issued in the name of third parties. He claimed, on the other hand, that he tried to regularize the situation and that the dismissal would be linked to a previous medical leave due to low back pain.
According to Noticias Trabajo, the Superior Court of Justice of Murcia rejected these arguments. The judges understood that the 60-day period provided for in article 60 of the Workers’ Statute and in the sector’s collective agreement does not begin when the company could have a mere suspicion, but only when the body with disciplinary power has “complete, full and exact” knowledge of the facts.
The thesis of discrimination linked to sick leave was also not accepted. The same source says that the temporary incapacity was brief and that the medical discharge had taken place two months before the dismissal, without sufficient evidence of a relationship between one thing and the other.
Contractual good faith and valid dismissal
In the end, the court concluded that the worker made purchases using the employee discount and invoiced them to a third party, which, according to the Convenio colectivo del sector de grandes almacenes, falls within the very serious offenses relating to the granting of discounts to other people and the breach of contractual good faith. The same understanding results from article 54.2.d of the Workers’ Statute, which provides for disciplinary dismissal in cases of breach of good faith and abuse of trust.
The Court thus confirmed the validity of the dismissal. And, under article 55.7 of the Workers’ Statute, this means that the termination of the contract is validated without the right to compensation or processing wages.
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