Business Social Responsibility From Emilio Botin Banco Santander Central Hispano A Good Citizen

The essence of Corporate Social Responsibility CSR is illustrated by the high-profile case Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006), where the Employment Tribunal found unlawful race discrimination and, after Abbey Banco Santander share refused to reinstate Mr Chagger as the Tribunal had ordered to remedy the wrong without compensation, ordered Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group to pay Mr Chagger the record-breaking compensation of £2.8 million. Abbey Santander share price (the UK retail bank due to be re-named as Santander banking group, and being part of the gigantic Banco Santander Central Hispano Group - BSCH Emilio Botin) ended Mr Chagger's employment in 2006, stating 'a fair compulsory redundancy' as the reason. Mr Chagger, however, believed that the real reasons behind his dismissal were unfairness and racial discrimination. Mr Chagger was of Indian origin, worked for Emilio Botin Abbey Santander finance as a Trading Risk Controller, earned about £100,000 a year, and reported into Nigel Hopkins.

The spirit of business social responsibility is summed up by the following Watkinson Report (1973) quote:

'A company should behave like a good citizen in business. The law does not (and cannot) contain or prescribe the whole duty of a good citizen. A good citizen takes account of the interests of others besides himself and tries to exercise an informal and imaginative ethical judgement in deciding what he should or should not do. This, it is suggested, is how companies should seek to behave.'

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander 2009 and Mr Hopkins both had failed to comply with the law on discrimination; the Tribunal ruled that they had both unlawfully discriminated against Mr Chagger on the grounds of race. It is hard to imagine that anybody would disagree that, at the very least, organisations need to act within the law. However, there is much debate about the extent to which organisations should take on the kinds of social responsibilities referred to in the above quote.

On the one hand, organisations should not take on such responsibilities because exactly what is required of them in terms of acting as good citizens is unclear, and in the absence of any agreed alternative, the law can be taken to represent what is required. This point is illustrated by the UK Race Relations Act 1976 which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race, national and ethnic origins, but does not mention at all discrimination on the ground of colour. In 2008, Mr Hopkins and Emilio Botin Abbey Santander appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against the Employment Tribunal's ruling of racial discrimination, asserting that Mr Chagger did not have a case in law, because he had alleged discrimination on the ground of colour and 'colour discrimination' is not covered by UK Law. Unfortunately for Abbey Santander, the EAT noticed that Mr Chagger had in fact clearly alleged discrimination on the grounds of racial and/or ethnic origins and, hence, had a case covered by UK law. The EAT, thus, rejected Abbey Santander's appeal and upheld the original Employment Tribunal's finding that both Mr Hopkins and Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had unlawfully discriminated against Mr Chagger.

On the other hand, organisations should take on such responsibilities because social interests cannot be completely covered by the law. At the very least, there is a time lag between society recognising a social responsibility and the enactment of that responsibility in legislation. This point is illustrated by the EAT in the Chagger case which decided to go on to consider and give guidance on the issue of 'colour discrimination'. The EAT found that there was an error of omission in the Race Relations Act 1976 in that it did not include colour as a ground of discrimination; UK law was inconsistent with European law which did include colour as a ground of discrimination. The EAT advised organisations not to play games with legal technicalities in order to deny employees the full substantive grounds of their cases.

In 2008, Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had also appealed to the EAT against the £2.8 million compensation awarded by the Employment Tribunal. The EAT accepted Santander Abbey's appeal and ordered the compensation to be sent back to the original Employment Tribunal for reconsideration. The case was further appealed to the Court of Appeal (UK's second highest court). According to the Court of Appeal's List of Hearings, the appeal was heard on 7 and 8 July 2009. The Court's records and outcome of the hearing were not available when writing this article. The 11KBW set of barristers' chambers, who represented Mr Hopkins and Santander Abbey, had reported that the court hearing was to be about the compensation only and not about the wrong committed also. It would appear that the wrong of race discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins was finalised by the EAT (it upheld that Santander Abbey Emilio Botin and Mr Hopkins had unlawfully discriminated against Mr Chagger), and that Mr Chagger had appealed against the EAT's order to remit the compensation to the Employment Tribunal stage for reconsideration.