Ok, Disclaimer - NAL
Lets say employee A works at company B. Company B suspects employee A of fiddling expenses. Company B then does an "investigation" and finds that, in their opinion, employee A probably did fiddle the expenses and finds this grounds for dismissal under the companies policies and procedures. A disciplinary panel is formed of managers of company B who decide to terminate the employee's contract and does so.
Up until now the only people involved are employee A, the manager of employee A, an investigating manager from company B, the HR droid from company B and the disciplinary panel of company B. Its not a court of law and they only need find reasonable suspicion of guilt to can employee A's ass!
But then they send out an e-mail to all employees of company B stating that employee A has been fired for fiddling expenses.
Now company B feels like they are somehow sending a message, that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated and that staff be warned but they have made a mistake. But they are not the police, nor are they lawyers in a court of law. They are a company who conducted an internal investigation that is subject to all sorts of bias and non neutral points of view. Policies and Procedures do not trump the actual law and this employee A, who may be guilty, was not tried and convicted in a court of law, he was tried and convicted in a closed internal company procedure. He doesn't get to put his side to all the colleagues in a nice e-mail or get to defend himself (or herself) publicly and, while nobody argues that the company had sufficient grounds for dismissal, they should have simply fired employee A and let staff know he was no longer at the company, no reason need be given.
Instead, in addition to firing employee A, they chose to accuse him publicly and that gives him grounds to sue as a public accusation needs to meet a burden of proof in a court of law.
If they felt they wanted to make a public statement they should have involved the police who would have investigated and found evidence of fraud. He could then be tried in criminal court or civil court if they wanted to make a civil case of it and if the outcome was in company B's favor THEN they can shout it from the rooftops because it is then a legal fact and not libellous.
But until then, company B should have been smart and opened up a can of STFU and simply fired his/her ass. Instead company B is on the defensive which is not where they should be.
And the papers never say someone is guilty unless it is proven... otherwise the couch accusations as questions like "Employee A, Did he fiddle expenses?" or make references to sources / allegations "It is alleged that Employee A may have been fiddling expenses" or "Sources say A may have defrauded B".
