'You will fail': Sacked IT worker rejected EY and NBN's $400,000 settlement and demanded $8million instead... then came the judge's brutal verdict
NBN IT employee Abhishek Mishra rejected a $400,000 settlement, demanded $8 million, and was ordered to pay court costs after a judge ruled his claims unreasonable.Summary
Abhishek Mishra, a former IT employee at the state‑owned National Broadband Network (NBN), sued the company and its former consulting partner Ernst & Young (EY) alleging whistleblower retaliation and psychiatric injury. He sought a six‑figure settlement, but after a series of negotiations in which the parties offered between $150,000 and $400,000, Mishra repeatedly rejected the offers and demanded amounts ranging from $8 million to $3 million, citing loss of future income, relocation costs and mental‑health expenses. The court found his claims lacked a legal or factual basis, describing them as "an attempt to fit a square peg in a round hole." Justice Watson ruled that Mishra’s repeated refusals of reasonable settlement proposals were imprudent and, in the fourth and fifth offers, unreasonable, thereby imposing costs on NBN. The judge ordered Mishra to pay part of NBN’s legal costs and to cover the costs incurred from the fourth offer onward. The case illustrates the limits of whistleblower claims against large employers and the financial risks of pursuing high‑damages litigation when the evidence is weak.
(Source：Mail Online)