A sacked drug safety manager at Roche has been accused of making "false" allegations about his former colleagues to the Workplace Relations Commission by lawyers for the international pharma giant.
"You need to consider between now and the next day whether you are going to continue to make false allegations in the context of this case. You cannot continue to traduce or defame the reputations of people by making false allegations which contradict what was written," the company's barrister, Mark Connaughton SC, told complainant Dr Bruno Seigle-Murandi today.
Dr Seigle-Murandi told the employment tribunal last year that with a regulatory inspection looming in July 2019, the Irish firm’s then-general manager Pierre-Alain Delley pressured him to sign off on an "alternative storyline" about the firm’s stance on a recall of marketing literature.
"The allegation is against Mr [Pierre-Alain] Delley. Other individuals will give evidence. What you have alleged again here will be denied. There was no requirement on you to lie or misrepresent in any way," Mr Connaughton said.
"I disagree," said Dr Seigle-Murandi.
The tribunal also heard today that Dr Seigle-Murandi made a second notification to the HPRA – described by Mr Connaughton as "unilateral" – in July 2020 concerning the documents issue, after the company said the regulator had closed its file on the matter to its satisfaction.
Dr Seigle-Murandi, formerly pharmacovigilance manager and local safety representative, was being cross-examined today on his evidence to the WRC in statutory complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against Roche Products Ireland Ltd.
Mr Connaughton said that Roche would produce witnesses to contradict Dr Seigle-Murandi’s evidence on the 22 May 2019 notification letter to the HPRA, in which he claimed he had been threatened over by Mr Delley.
Mr Seigle-Murandi’s position was that he had allowed a notification letter to go out to the regulator without realising that his recommendation for a literature recall had not been included in the final version.
"You were involved fully in the document sent to the HPRA… There was no act, deliberate or otherwise, to remove anything from that document without your consent," Mr Connaughton said.
"That is not what I experienced," the complainant said.
Mr Connaugton produced an email written by Dr Seigle-Murandi in August 2019 in which he thanked colleagues about their response to the HPRA inspection a few days earlier at the end of July that year – referring to a "deep sense of integrity and trust".
"You need to consider between now and the next day whether you are going to continue to make false allegations in the context of this case. You cannot continue to traduce or defame the reputations of people by making false allegations
"I have to put it to you that's reflective of the true position. This is reflective of how you felt at the time and now how you have represented it before this hearing. Are you saying a falsehood on 1 August?" Mr Connaughton asked the complainant of the email.
Dr Seigle-Murandi said the firm was still non-compliant at the time, but that he had used "kind words" in order to foster collaboration.
He said he believed Roche’s ranking pharmacovigilance compliance officer, Dr Birgitt Gellert, was "supportive" at this point.
"I trusted these people," he said.
Mr Connaughton put it to him that he had been "insincere", which the witness denied.
"I put it to you that the culture in the company, globally and in this jurisdiction, is to always address deficiencies. No-one was involved in covering anything up. Once a deficiency was identified they acted expeditiously," counsel said.
"This is not my experience at Roche Ireland. This is not my experience in the role, in my involvement with marketing, medical, the core inspection team," Dr Seigle-Murandi said, adding that this was "immediately" apparent to him in May 2019, when he began making inquries with its marketing and medical departments about the brochures.
Mr Connaughton also put it to Dr Seigle-Murandi that – contrary to the complainant’s previous evidence that he had been marked down in a performance review colleagues were reacting negatively to his stance on regulatory matters – his last line manager, Patrick Weston, "engaged in a very careful, very proper and very professional assessment of overall performance".
Rather than having "micromanaged" the complainant, Mr Connaughton said, Mr Weston was "very professional and very fair in his approach".
"I think it is not a fair statement," Dr Seigle-Murandi said.
Mr Connaughton said Mr Weston would deny in his testimony that he ever engaged in "oppression" and will say that he was "always willing to collaborate".
This morning, counsel for the complainant Darach MacNamara BL took Dr Seigle-Murandi through a document produced by an external consultancy firm in March 2019, ahead of a leadership workshop at the Hilton hotel in Kilmainham, Dublin 8, prior to the non-compliant brochures being discovered.
This included anonymous comments from a group of colleagues, including some from the "core" team the complainant said had been critical of him that autumn, the tribunal was told.
In it, Dr Seigle-Murandi was variously described as having a "high level of passion for wanting to do what is right"; with remarks that he was "not afraid to challenge old ways of working" and was "quite calm and organised under pressure".
"He may be perceived by others as arrogant, which I believe he is not," read one.
Another statement suggested he would be better in some situations "not to fight for it" but to pursue an alternative resolution.
"He will follow rules and procedures bit [is] very easy to do business with," was another statement in the document.
Counsel for Roche, Mark Connaughton SC, said that what had been put to the complainant in evidence was not the complete document.
Dr Seigle-Murandi said that it was the extent of what had been shared with him at the time.
Following the opening of cross-examination, Dr Seigle-Murandi said he was having some difficulty, as a non-native speaker of English, with what he said were "convoluted" questions posed to him by Mr Connaughton.
Adjudicating officer David James Murphy said the complainant could request the assistance of an interpreter from the WRC.
He indicated he would look for the case to be set down for three more days of hearing, and adjourned the matter.
Dr Seigle-Murandi has travelled from his home in Strasbourg, France for each hearing so far in the company of his brother, Dr Frédéric Seigle-Murandi.
The complainant has been told he must continue to attend in person until his cross-examination is concluded, but may dial in by video-link thereafter – with the matter set to continue for up to three days more.
In his evidence to date, Dr Seigle-Murandi has accused the former general manager in Ireland, Pierre-Alain Delley, of pressuring him to lie to the State pharmaceuticals regulator.
He claims there was a "cover-up" of widespread non-compliance in marketing materials – something he says was not a mistake, but "done with a commercial purpose".
He says he was regarded as a "snitch" by some colleagues and that he suffered exclusionary treatment, criticism of his personal style and "micromanagement".
Roche maintains Dr Seigle-Murandi was justifiably sacked on the grounds of gross misconduct after a company investigation established he had sent documents from his company address to personal email accounts.
The complainant said he was placed on administrative leave to prevent him from contradicting his colleagues in Roche Ireland in reports to Roche group auditors on the implementation of a plan to respond to the brochure compliance issues.
The complainant’s position is he only retained information which the company might regard as commercially sensitive as "evidence" to substantiate his allegations, and that he had the protection of the whistleblower legislation in doing so.
Although Roche acknowledges he made a disclosure about the brochure compliance issue in May 2019, it maintains there was no second disclosure the following year, as the complainant’s legal team claims, which could afford Dr Seigle-Murandi whistleblower protections on the email issue.
