Former Manchester City defender Benjamin Mendy has won a partial victory in his case against the Premier League club for over £11 million in unpaid wages, after he was charged with and acquitted of sexual offences.
The France international filed an employment tribunal claim against City last year, seeking unpaid wages and interest from when City stopped paying him in September 2021 until the end of his contract in June 2023.
Mendy argued City had unlawfully deducted wages that he was due under his contract, saying in a witness statement that he had been promised he would be paid after he was cleared.
City’s lawyers, however, said Mendy was not paid because he ‘was not ready and able to perform his duties … as a consequence of his own conduct’, as he was held in custody before his trial for breaching his bail conditions.
Judge Joanne Dunlop upheld part of Mendy’s case in a written ruling on Wednesday.
A summary of the tribunal’s judgment stated: ‘The result of this decision is that Mr Mendy will be entitled to receive the majority of his unpaid salary, although not all of it.’
Dunlop said in her ruling that Mendy spent two periods in custody, covering about five months of the 22-month period of his claim and during which City was entitled to withhold his pay.
When Mendy was not in custody, Dunlop found, he was ‘ready and willing to work’ and prevented from doing so by impediments such as his suspension by the Football Association and bail conditions ‘which were unavoidable or involuntary on his part’.
‘In those circumstances, and absent any authorisation in the contract for the employer to withhold pay, he was entitled to be paid,’ Dunlop added.
Mendy spent two periods in custody, which accounted for approximately five months of the 22-month period covered by his claim.
The total amount Mendy is entitled to is yet to be agreed by his lawyers and the current Premier League champions.