Colleague blaming me for a problem that she caused

[Frozenice]

I work in a marketing department for a major UK company.

Back in June our department received an email from a cereal manufacturer asking if our company would sponsor and provide the prizes for an On-Pack Promotion they we're going to run.

After evaluating the opportunity I responded to the email and declined the opportunity as I could see that it wasn't a strategic brand fit for our company. The next day my colleague (same level as me so not more senior) responds to the email from the cereal manufacturer and says that we are interested in the opportunity! My colleague knew that the opportunity wasn't a good brand fit for our company and lied about various parts of the opportunity to get it approved by our internal stakeholders.

Since June the promotion had ran and our company provided the prizes and generated no return on investment for our company and now my colleague is saying I did it all and that I caused it! I have a meeting with our Chief Marketing Officer tomorrow and he expects me to apologise and explain why I did it when I didn't. The Chief Marketing Officer has already spoke to the colleague and she has denied everything and is blaming me and the Chief Marketing Officer believes her.

My colleague is accusing me of forging my email (the email where I declined the opportunity) to avoid the blame and is accusing me of forging the email of her accepting the opportunity.

[Dinglebert]

Firstly welcome to the dibb,
While I understand you have a problem, I'm not certain that a holiday forum is the best place to get legal employment advice. I would contact your union.

[Frozenice]

Originally Posted by Dinglebert

Firstly welcome to the dibb,
While I understand you have a problem, I'm not certain that a holiday forum is the best place to get legal employment advice. I would contact your union.

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I'm not in a union

[EssexSue]

If you have the email proof I think that's an end of it! Do you have a copy of colleagues email?

[Frozenice]

Originally Posted by EssexSue

If you have the email proof I think that's an end of it! Do you have a copy of colleagues email?

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Yep I have her email as I was CC'd into it. She's accusing me of forging the emails though.

[duchy]

Presumably you have your email copies still in your sent folder .
Present the facts and explain the process (including when you discovered your colleagues actions and what action you took if any at that point)
She has made a serious accusation accusing you of forging emails which needs to be addressed in the same meeting.

[Frozenice]

Originally Posted by duchy

Presumably you have your email copies still in your sent folder .
Present the facts and explain the process (including when you discovered your colleagues actions and what action you took if any at that point)
She has made a serious accusation accusing you of forging emails which needs to be addressed in the same meeting.

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Yep I still have the emails in my sent folder.

[123]

Originally Posted by Frozenice

I work in a marketing department for a major UK company.

Back in June our department received an email from a cereal manufacturer asking if our company would sponsor and provide the prizes for an On-Pack Promotion they we're going to run.

After evaluating the opportunity I responded to the email and declined the opportunity as I could see that it wasn't a strategic brand fit for our company. The next day my colleague (same level as me so not more senior) responds to the email from the cereal manufacturer and says that we are interested in the opportunity! My colleague knew that the opportunity wasn't a good brand fit for our company and lied about various parts of the opportunity to get it approved by our internal stakeholders.

Since June the promotion had ran and our company provided the prizes and generated no return on investment for our company and now my colleague is saying I did it all and that I caused it! I have a meeting with our Chief Marketing Officer tomorrow and he expects me to apologise and explain why I did it when I didn't. The Chief Marketing Officer has already spoke to the colleague and she has denied everything and is blaming me and the Chief Marketing Officer believes her.

My colleague is accusing me of forging my email (the email where I declined the opportunity) to avoid the blame and is accusing me of forging the email of her accepting the opportunity.

See more...

If you work for a large company you will have an IT department and they will have a log of every email transmission.

They will be able to verify authenticity of date sent of each email and the IP address of the machine the email was sent from.

Now this doesn't preclude you/her having sat at each other's computer and sent an email "pretending" to be the other person, it will prove that an email was created and sent at a specific time.

This is included in all corporate email systems as email is used as a legal message system nowadays

I'd remind your colleague that the proof you sent the email when you did is available to the IT department and she will be in much more trouble if you have to prove she lied.

Give her the chance to come clean in advance

[2point]

I would immediately raise a grievance claim against this other employee.

They are accusing you of fraud and damaging your reputation.

If you work for a major UK company you will have IT services that can prove these emails were not forged(or were forged... ).

[shirley]

If you have your emails, is that not enough proof, and surely she would have her emails still on her computer?

Hopefully you can proof shes lying, shameful behavior.