The CEO Accused Him of ‘Stealing Money From the Company’ and Fired Him on the Spot — Then a Tribunal Awarded Him £61,419

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A man can do his job, hit his numbers, and still get himself sideways if expectations change and nobody says the quiet part out loud. That’s part of what makes this employment tribunal story so relatable. One day you’re “rising rapidly,” the next you’re sitting across from the CEO being accused of stealing.

Tanveer Shah, a sales manager for Foodhub, was fired after his boss questioned why his expenses were much lower than the rest of his team, and why records suggested he hadn’t been out in the field very often. The details, and the tribunal’s reasoning for awarding him £61,419, were reported in the original post.

It’s tempting to turn a case like this into a neat morality play about remote work or “bad bosses.” But the actual story is messier, which is usually how real workplaces are. There’s performance, perception, process, and pride all tangled together, and the tribunal zeroed in on one big thing: fairness.

From high performer to hot seat

Foodhub, which lists takeaways from tens of thousands of UK restaurants, hired Shah in 2018 as a field sales executive. The tribunal heard he performed well and moved up quickly, first becoming a regional field account manager and then UK field sales manager. When a company promotes you fast, it usually means they see both results and potential, not just effort.

But promotions also come with a different kind of scrutiny. When you’re managing a national role, people expect you to be visible, active, and—fair or not—seen doing the work. And in sales, “seen” often translates to being physically out there with clients and teams.

The expenses that raised eyebrows

The trigger for the confrontation wasn’t a whistleblower or a dramatic accusation out of nowhere. It was a pattern in the numbers. Foodhub’s CEO, Ardian Mula, noticed Shah’s expenses were far lower than the rest of the team, and for a national role the tribunal heard the “opposite pattern” would normally be expected.

Mula said the records suggested Shah had only travelled away from home six or seven times over the previous three months. In a meeting, the CEO asked how many days out of the last 60 Shah had been in the field. Shah didn’t answer that directly and instead argued he didn’t need to be in the field to do his job.

You can feel the temperature change right there. Even if Shah believed he could manage effectively without being out as much, that answer can sound like defiance to a leader who thinks the role requires boots on the ground. Once a conversation turns into a power struggle, it rarely stays calm for long.

“Stealing money” and a same-day dismissal

The tribunal heard Mula disagreed and pointed to poor sales figures for Shah’s team. Then it escalated: Mula accused him of “stealing money from the company” and “illegitimately taking a salary,” and dismissed him on the spot. Those aren’t mild words, and they’re not the kind you toss around unless you’re ready to back them up.

In many workplaces, being fired in the moment like that is the point where relationships fracture beyond repair. Even if the company later tries to “paper” the decision with meetings and documentation, the damage is already done. A public accusation from the top carries a weight that doesn’t wash off easily.

The remote-work wrinkle: Egypt and Covid

Part of Shah’s explanation involved working remotely while he was in Egypt. He told the tribunal he had been there on holiday, contracted Covid-19, and was unable to fly back to the UK, so he spent some time working remotely. That kind of situation isn’t hard to imagine—plans change fast when illness hits abroad.

At the same time, the tribunal noted Shah couldn’t say whether he’d been in Egypt for days, a week, or several weeks at the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022. The judge described that as a “surprising gap” in his memory. If you’re trying to defend your conduct at work, fuzzy timelines don’t help, even if you’re telling the truth.

He also accepted he’d been told to spend four to five days each week in the field, though he said this was a change in his role and he didn’t feel there had been a proper process for managing that change. That detail matters, because a job can drift over time—quiet expectations become “obvious requirements,” and then someone gets punished for not reading minds.

The appeal that looked fair on paper

After the dismissal, Shah was allowed to appeal, and Foodhub carried out an investigation. He attended two interviews and had opportunities to comment on evidence, and then there was a disciplinary hearing with a manager. On the surface, that’s what a procedural path often looks like: investigate, interview, hear the employee, decide.

But the tribunal didn’t accept that the process was genuinely open-minded. Judge David Maxwell said those steps were taken to give “the superficial appearance of fairness.” That’s a sharp critique, because it suggests the company wasn’t trying to discover what happened; it was trying to justify what it had already decided.

What the tribunal said went wrong

The judge’s finding went beyond “they handled it badly.” The tribunal concluded the process was “orchestrated” by a senior HR business partner, James Page, to reach the outcome Mula had already chosen—dismissal. In plain terms: the decision came first, and the investigation came second.

The tribunal highlighted fuel expenses as the clearest example. Because of missing entries, the information didn’t fully show how often Shah had been in the field. The judge said if the fuel card data had been investigated in a full and fair way—by contacting the fuel card company and requesting duplicates where needed—the relevant transactions would have been found the first time.

Instead, the tribunal heard Page produced an “unreliable and incomplete spreadsheet.” That kind of detail is where cases are won and lost. A company doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to be honest, thorough, and willing to follow the facts even if they complicate the narrative.

£61,419 awarded and the human cost after the firing

Judge Maxwell awarded £61,419 in compensation. The tribunal heard evidence that Shah’s mental health deteriorated as a result of a prolonged period of unemployment and his financial situation after he was sacked. Getting fired is rarely just about losing a salary; it can shake your confidence, strain your home life, and make you feel like you’re carrying a stamp on your forehead.

There’s also something sobering about the accusation itself. Being told you’re “stealing” isn’t the same as being told you fell short. One is a performance problem; the other is an attack on character, and character is what a man has left when the job title is gone.

Foodhub, founded in 2008 by Mula and Mohammed Shakil, employs more than 1,000 people and operates in multiple countries, including the UK, US, Australia, and New Zealand. Companies at that scale can do a lot of good, but they also have a responsibility to handle discipline with care. If you’re going to end someone’s employment, you’d better be sure you’re not also casually wrecking their name.

This case sits in that uncomfortable space where two things can be true: employers can reasonably expect people to do the job they were hired to do, and employers can still be wrong in how they investigate and dismiss someone. For most of us, the takeaway isn’t “remote work fixes everything” or “CEOs are villains.” It’s simpler and harder: be clear about expectations, keep your records straight, and if you lead people, remember you’re dealing with souls, not just spreadsheets.