A 59-year-old IBM Canada executive with nearly two decades of service has been awarded $682,151 in damages after an Ontario court found the company wrongfully dismissed him and improperly stripped him of stock compensation worth more than a quarter-million dollars.
The Superior Court of Justice awarded the executive director a 24-month notice period, citing his age, senior position, and complete failure to find new employment despite what the company conceded were reasonable job search efforts.
The worker joined Platform Computing in 2004 and continued with IBM after its acquisition. He climbed from quality assurance engineer through various technical and management roles before reaching executive director of strategic partnerships in 2021. When IBM terminated him without cause in January 2023, he held a Band D executive position—the lowest of four executive levels—managing a team of nine.
IBM initially argued the worker was not wrongfully terminated at all, then shifted at trial to proposing 20 to 22 months as appropriate notice. The company never amended its legal pleadings to reflect the change.
The court looked to a 2021 case involving another IBM employee to calibrate its award. In that decision, a 47-year-old non-executive worker with 24 years of service received 22 months. Despite having fewer years with the company, the current plaintiff’s executive status and significantly older age justified a longer period, the court found.
The worker’s job search proved fruitless. Over 24 months, he applied for 100 positions, received four interviews at four different companies, and got no offers. He did consulting work for two firms but earned nothing during the claimed notice period.
Bonus battles
The court denied the worker’s claim for bonuses during his notice period, finding they were not integral to his compensation. IBM’s global compensation director testified that bonuses were not used to maintain market competitiveness and that executives received zero bonuses “all the time.”
But the court awarded him $24,227 for his 2022 bonus, finding IBM unfairly denied him payment simply because he had left before the payout date.
An IBM compensation statement provided the evidence: “For 2022 he separated before AIP payment date (for 2023 cycle) so he is not eligible for AIP payment.”
Internal spreadsheets revealed a pattern. IBM managers used a “comments” column to note why employees received zero bonuses. Some entries read “Skip – Low Performance.” Others stated “Skip – Pending Separation.”
The court rejected IBM’s explanation that separation status didn’t automatically trigger zero bonuses. “I do not accept this explanation. It is inconsistent with the plain meaning of the words of the document,” the court wrote.
IBM offered no testimony from anyone who actually made the worker’s 2022 bonus decision. One executive testified the zero bonus “made sense” based on her general knowledge, but the court dismissed this as speculation.
Stock compensation reversal
IBM initially denied the worker was entitled to any damages for cancelled restricted stock units and options worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company reversed course just weeks before trial, after a 2023 Ontario decision involving another IBM employee with identical equity plan language.
The court awarded $269,508 for the cancelled equity, but rejected IBM’s approach to valuation. Instead of using the shares’ value on their scheduled vesting dates in February 2024, the court calculated what the worker would have received had he sold them consistent with his investing pattern.
Evidence showed he held equity that vested in February 2023 for an average of 402 days before selling—a “passive investing” philosophy where he “tended to leave things there” until needing money. The court applied this same timeline to the cancelled 2024 equity, valuing the shares at March 2025 prices.
The worker sought aggravated and punitive damages over IBM’s equity cancellation, describing the company’s conduct as “reprehensible” and “flagrant” given existing court precedent. The court declined, finding his distress did not exceed normal termination-related stress and that taking a legally untenable position during litigation did not rise to the level of conduct warranting punishment.
For more information, see (Plaintiff) v. IBM Canada Limited, 2026 ONSC 420 (CanLII).
