Tech worker tried to sue her boss as he didn’t offer her champagne

A glamorous £95,000-a-year tech worker who sued her boss for racism after he did not offer her champagne at an office party has been told by a judge she could have just helped herself.

Laoise Foley, a pre-sales consultant at London digital firm Smart Impact Limited, told a tribunal that managing director Ahmed Eltohamy had deliberately skipped her when pouring drinks at a Christmas client event in November 2022 – because she was Irish.

But Employment Judge Hodgson, ruling at Central London Employment Tribunal in December, disagreed.

Mr Eltohamy, he found, had simply been placing glasses on the table for colleagues to help themselves – and Ms Foley had been free to do exactly that.

Ms Foley, 30, who earned a basic salary of £75,000 a year plus a £20,000 bonus, brought a total of 14 allegations of discrimination, harassment and victimisation against her employer.

She had originally also sued for unfair dismissal – but withdrew that claim on the first day of the hearing.

The remaining claims were all thrown out by the judge.

The champagne incident, the tribunal heard, took place on November 24, 2022, during a client day at which staff were presenting new products.

Mr Eltohamy, as managing director and host, was pouring drinks – but Ms Foley claimed he had gone round the room handing glasses to colleagues individually while deliberately passing her by.

The judge rejected that account. ‘He was pouring glasses and placing them on the table,’ Judge Hodgson said. ‘People helped themselves, and everyone was welcome to take a glass.’

Concluding that Ms Foley had enjoyed exactly the same opportunity as everyone else in the room, he added: ‘She chose not to take a glass.’

It was not the only extraordinary claim Ms Foley made about her 18 months at the firm.

She told the tribunal that Mr Eltohamy had once ‘jumped back as if pushed’ and shouted ‘bye’ when she passed him in a corridor – implying, she said, that she was ‘an aggressive Irishwoman who tried to push people out of the way’.

The judge was equally dismissive, finding she had given ‘inconsistent and confusing’ evidence about when the incident had even taken place, and concluding that Mr Eltohamy had simply moved aside politely to let her pass.

Ms Foley also claimed a colleague had harassed her by sending a WhatsApp message asking about a work document while she was on annual leave – a message the judge found fell ‘well short’ of harassment – and that being sent a viral video of a six-year-old Irish girl asking her mother to take her to the pub amounted to racial harassment.

She had responded to that video at the time with a crying-laughing emoji and the words ‘Pretty much!’ and Judge Hodgson was unconvinced she had been offended.

Before bringing her tribunal claim, Ms Foley had raised four grievances internally with the firm.

Just one – that she had not received a sufficient induction when she joined – was upheld.

Her remaining complaints, including that she had been falsely accused of shouting at a colleague and that she had received conflicting instructions from her manager, were all dismissed.

The tribunal heard that Ms Foley had become increasingly withdrawn during her time at the firm, refusing to carry out basic duties, and was handed her six-week notice in March 2024.

Mr Eltohamy told the tribunal that by then, he and Ms Foley’s line manager had reached a ‘settled view’ that she was ‘no longer adequately engaging with her colleagues, excluding herself from the business, not doing what she was asked’ and that her overall performance was not good enough.

The judge agreed, finding there was no evidence the dismissal had anything to do with any protected act or characteristic.

Ms Foley’s victimisation claim – which alleged she had been sacked in retaliation for raising concerns about sex discrimination during her grievance – was thrown out along with everything else.