City worker's damages award cut

Steven Horkulak joined Cantor in 1997

City firm Cantor Fitzgerald International has won a reduction in £900,000 damages awarded to a former employee who claimed he was bullied.

Steven Horkulak, 39, from Chislehurst, Kent, claimed he was bullied for six months until his June 2003 dismissal.

The former senior manager said he was abused by another manager who allegedly threatened to rip his head off.

But Cantor claimed the award was excessive and it has now been reduced by nearly £117,000.

The Appeal Court judges were told the mistakes had been made when reaching conclusions about the original damages award.

Absent from work

It was also claimed that insufficient weight had been attached to Cantor's criticisms of Mr Horkulak.

This included claims that he absented himself from the office without informing anyone, that he often had his mobile phone switched off, and that he was frequently absent from work without explanation.

Mr Horkulak had claimed that the brokerage firm's president Lee Amaitis had screamed obscenities at him and had threatened "to break him into two and rip his head off".

Timothy Brennan QC, for Mr Horkulak, had told Mr Justice Newman at the High Court in London that the treatment went "beyond what anyone should have to put up with in the workplace".

The court also ruled that a further £630,000 won by Mr Horkulak should go back for re-determination to Mr Justice Newman, who initially heard the case, as a retrial would be too costly.