A court has partly overturned a judgment in a defamation suit over job references provided, highlighting what is at stake in employer references.

AXA Life Insurance in Singapore, part of France-based financial group AXA, reportedly "breached the duty of care" to a former employee who claimed references from the firm, costing him a $2.2 million remuneration package with Prudential, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

Ramesh Krishnan has accused AXA of defaming him when providing references on his work performance. He lost the defamation suit in the lower court last year but that judgment was partly overturned yesterday. Ramesh said AXA's reference would lead an ordinary person to infer that he had been incompetent, a report by the Straits Times of Singapore said.

He said the reference cost him potential remuneration from two prospective employers - a $2.2 million package with Prudential and a $20,000 sign-on fee with Tokio Marine. (The article did not stipulate whether these amounts were in Singapore or US dollars.) 

WealthBriefingAsia is in contact with AXA about the matter and may update in due course.

AXA told the two firms of the "persistency" rates of policies sold by financial advisors under Ramesh's supervision. Persistency rates refer to how long the plans were in force after a given period.

High Court Judicial Commissioner George Wei ruled last year that AXA did not breach the duty to take reasonable care when responding to Prudential, Tokio Marine and the Monetary Authority of Singapore because the accuracy of AXA's calculations of the persistency ratios were "supported by evidence and remained largely unchallenged" by Ramesh.

But the appeal court held that the man succeeded in his claim of negligence against AXA in respect of his application to join Prudential but not his application to join Tokio Marine.

The Court of Appeal awarded Ramesh the costs of the appeal, and of the trial in respect of only the negligence claim pertaining to his application to join Prudential, but not the negligence claim pertaining to his application to join Tokio Marine, nor the defamation and the malicious falsehood claims, the report added.