Following a computer error, an employee received 200,000 francs which were not due to him between 2011 and 2017. He considers that he does not have to reimburse this sum, deeming his salary at the time too low.
© 20min/Vanessa Lam
The Hérens et Conthey court must rule on a computer error that lasted nearly seven years.
Who would not dream of receiving an additional 2,500 francs in salary each month? No one, to be sure. A forties Valaisan however perceived this sum in the form of expenses during nearly seven years. A jackpot of 200,000 francs that his former employer is now claiming from him. And it is in court that the two parties explained themselves on Wednesday.
In February 2011, the employee of a major telecommunications company was transferred from Sion to Martigny, his post disappearing. The man then benefits from a social plan. He is allocated a single amount of 2,500 francs to compensate for the increase in his travel costs between his home and his new place of work. A computer bug will allow him to touch twice this amount in February 2011, then the same amount, monthly, until September 2017, when the company realized his error and fired him, the man refusing to reimburse it.
“His guilt is clear”
“The accused, by his filthy bad faith, knew or at least had accepted the possibility that this money was not intended for him. His guilt is clear, ”said prosecutor Liliane Bruttin Mottier during her plea. The representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested a 10-month suspended prison sentence for two years for use without rights of assets as well as the reimbursement of the debt finally fixed at some 182,000 francs, part of the damage having been compensated by the company. (in an undisclosed form).
Before the Court of Hérens and Conthey, the accused denied having received too high a remuneration: “In my eyes it was correct. It was a correction of my previous salary and additional travel expenses. ”
“Not a computer error”
“His strategy is to deny the obvious,” considered the defense lawyer, Me Timothée Bargouth. So either the defendant has amnesia (note: and does not remember having signed the agreement fixing the terms of his change of post), or he takes us all for fools. ” “My client is not a thief,” Me Béatrice Pilloud replied, pleading acquittal. This is not a computer code error, but a demonstration of what my client should receive. ”
At the start of the hearing, the lawyer from Sedun had sought to obtain a classification of the case, estimating the deadline for filing a complaint exceeded 40 days. An argument that the court refused, preferring to judge the case on the merits. The verdict will not be known until next week.
