Hollywood special effects firm which worked on Captain America and Hot Fuzz is ordered to pay female employee £112k after boss called her an ‘old nag’

A Hollywood special effects firm has been ordered to pay £112,000 after its male boss called a female employee an 'old whiner' and told another not to 'get her knickers in a mess'.

Artem Ltd must pay the amount to chief financial officer Karen Edwins after she sued the company over CEO Mike Kelt's comments to female employees.

Founder Kelt was found to have used offensive 'gender slurs', such as saying he wanted a 'beautiful young lady' at the reception.

West London firm Artem specializes in physical effects and has worked on films such as Captain America and Hot Fuzz, creating Graham Norton's Big Red Chair for his BBC chat show and The Bull sculpture for the opening ceremony of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Ms Edwins successfully sued the company for sex discrimination after claiming she was unfairly left from her job in the 'male-dominated industry'.

Artem must pay Ms Edwins £112,007, a judge has now ruled.

The 60-year-old said she was the victim of gender and race discrimination when Kelt – who has worked on classic British TV shows including Doctor Who, Blake's Seven and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – told her he had lost the trust had lost in her. .

At a meeting, he said “a few things” had gone “dramatically wrong,” comments that prompted her to resign after nearly 25 years with the company.

The tribunal in Watford ruled in her favor after hearing the chairman's comments against female staff and that 80 percent of Kelt's employees were male and 'predominantly' white.

In a majority decision, the panel found that Mr. Kelt's conversation with Ms. Edwins amounted to a “dismissive breach” of her contract.

'[Artem] has not shown that the dismissive behavior was in no way related to gender or race, and therefore [constructive] dismissal was an act of direct discrimination on the grounds of sex and race,” the report concluded.

“The workforce was more than 80 percent male,” the panel added. 'Mr Kelt had this brought to his attention and said he would consider it. He had not taken any action.

“He made the comment 'old whiner'…two females [staff] each commented on specific comments he had made that had offended them.

'These are facts which demonstrate that Mr Kelt's actions may have been motivated by the gender of the person he was speaking to, or about, and which could lead the Tribunal to conclude that his words and actions [to Ms Edwins] were, at least in part, and at least unconsciously, influenced by [her] sex.'

Ms Edwins' race claim was similarly upheld after the tribunal heard that the only other BAME employee at the company was paid differently to white employees during the Covid pandemic.

The financial director is now eligible for compensation.

The tribunal heard that Ms Edwins joined Artem – which has workshops in London and Glasgow and whose website states 'If you can dream it, we can build it' – in 1996 and was appointed finance director in 2004.

Mr Kelt also said he wanted a 'beautiful young lady' at his company's reception, an employment tribunal heard

The hearing was told she said it was a “male-dominated” industry and that white men were “over-represented”, with the company employing nine women out of a total of 36 staff in 2022.

By 2020, Mr Kelt and managing director Toby Stewart had become increasingly concerned about Ms Edwins' performance and told her a financial investigation would be carried out, the tribunal heard.

This led to a meeting in August in which the chairman said he had 'lost confidence in her'.

“He said he and Mr Stewart both thought she was unhelpful,” the tribunal heard. “He said some things had gone seriously wrong.”

After the meeting, a “thoroughly demoralized” Mrs. Edwins resigned.

She complained about the way she was treated and complained about the way women were spoken to. The company then conducted an investigation, the tribunal heard.

'In relation to comments or nicknames or so-called 'banter' possibly related to sex, one interviewee recalled that Mr Kelt had told her that she had gotten her 'knickers in a twist' and that she had found this offensive. the hearing was told.

“One interviewee recalls that Mr. Kelt used the expression 'beautiful young lady' and that he said, among other things, that he wanted a 'beautiful young lady' at the reception.”

The tribunal heard that in 2019, Mr Kelt called a female manager an “old nag”, a comment he said was “a gendered comment used in a pejorative way”.

Mr Kelt, whose company was criticized after a tribunal ruled in favor of Karen Edwins

“This comment was made within earshot of several employees, and [Ms Edwins] was one of them. [The female employee] didn't like this comment.'

After her complaint was dismissed, Ms Edwins took Artem to the tribunal with her claims, including unfair dismissal, discrimination on grounds of gender, race and age, and harassment.

Most of her case was dismissed. However, her claims of gender and race discrimination and unfair dismissal in relation to her dismissal were upheld.

Although Judge Patrick Quill disagreed with the panel's majority finding, the tribunal concluded: '[Artem] failed to prove that a hypothetical comparator, being a financial director who was a man and whose performance, attitude and other circumstances were the same as [Ms Edwins] would have been treated the same way…

'[And] a hypothetical comparator, because he was a financial director who was of a different race [Ms Edwins]and whose performance, attitude and other circumstances were the same as [her] would have been treated in the same way.'

Judge Quill also said: 'The discrimination had a significant impact on her; One of the things that bothered her was that this was an employer that she considered part of the family.'