Facing claims of bullying and a secret office affair, shopping giant Super Retail Group is trying to keep the lid on how much it allegedly agreed to pay its former top lawyer after she threatened to sue the company.
Rebecca Farrell is pursuing the retailer and a slew of its top executives in the Federal Court to enforce a settlement offer she said was agreed in May 2024.
Super Retail Group, which owns Supercheap Auto, Rebel Sport, BCF and Macpac, allegedly entered into the confidential deal with Ms Farrell and a second senior lawyer Amelia Berczelly to quash potential legal claims they could bring.
The retailer denies this, saying that no agreement was struck.
While details of the allegations against the firm were initially suppressed, Justice Michael Lee released a partially redacted version of the pleadings, revealing an allegedly dysfunctional workplace.
The company has appealed to keep certain further details of the pleadings under wraps, including the amount Ms Farrell says she is owed.
On Thursday, the firm’s barrister Zoe Hillman told the Federal Court the public release of the information would cause her client “fundamental prejudice”.
If no settlement was reached, confidential details provided during negotiations would be outed, Justice Michael Wigney heard.
On the other hand, if there was a deal then Ms Farrell had agreed to keep the details of it confidential, Ms Hillman told the judge.
“Ms Farrell comes to the court and says ‘I require specific performance of an agreement but I myself will not perform my obligations’,” she said.
While working at the company as chief legal officer and company secretary from February 2020 until May 2024, Ms Farrell alleges she was put under an excessive workload of 65 hours a week without adequate resources to fulfil her role.
She claims she made repeated complaints about health and safety risks that were not adequately dealt with by those higher up.
In November 2023, an anonymous whistleblower report claimed chief executive Anthony Heraghty was in a secret, extramarital affair with chief human resources officer Jane Kelly, her pleadings said.
An anonymous survey of staff a month earlier allegedly showed employees did not want to speak up as they perceived “too much conflict and nepotism” around Mr Heraghty and Ms Kelly.
A second whistleblower complaint in December 2023, after Ms Kelly left the firm, brought up a “culture of bullying” allegedly engaged in by her and the chief executive.
Super Retail Group previously said it denied the allegations in the lawsuit, including claims Mr Heraghty was involved in a clandestine affair.
After the professional relationship between Ms Farrell and the retailer broke down, they entered confidential mediation talks to settle the dispute.
Despite this, the company made public statements on the Australian Stock Exchange and to a News Corp journalist about an expected $30 million to $50 million lawsuit from the two employees, the court documents said.
Ms Farrell claims because of the retailer’s repeated breaches of corporation and employment law, she suffered a loss of earnings, psychiatric injury, damage to her professional reputation and general distress.
She is seeking either the amount payable under the purported settlement agreement or damages calculated by the court.
