The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has successfully appealed to the High Court of Australia against an order made by the Full Federal Court on 6 August last year. That earlier decision backed a ruling by a single Federal Court judge, where a former corporate banking executive, Stephen Barker, was awarded A$317,500 against the CBA for implied breaches of the spirit of the bank's redundancy process. The court had earlier read "a term of mutual trust and confidence" in the employment agreement between employee and employer. In a judgment handed down yesterday, the High Court was unanimous in its view that there are limits on how far an employer needs to go when dealing with employees whose position is made redundant.Barker, who rose to be executive manager of CBA's institutional and corporate banking division in Adelaide after nearly 30 years' service with the bank, was advised on 2 March 2009 that he had four weeks to find an alternative role within the group. His corporate phone and email were disconnected soon after. This was not relayed to the "Career Support team", who asserted they couldn't contact him for three weeks and only reached him (via his home email) the day before a suitable job was to be advertised.Further examples were given by Barker's lawyers as they attempted to show that the bank and its senior executives had followed the letter but not the spirit of their own redundancy rules.Barker's lawyers argued that his employer's pattern of conduct denied him the opportunity for redeployment. The primary Federal Court judge, Justice Anthony Besanko agreed and ruled that the CBA's failure to take meaningful steps with respect to Barker's redeployment, within a reasonable period, was a serious breach of the bank's own redeployment policy and thereby a breach of the implied terms of trust and confidence. Barker's damages were assessed at $317,500, based upon discounted past and future economic loss.The Full Court (ie, three judges on the bench) of the Federal Court also concluded that a term of mutual trust and confidence was implied by law into the agreement, although for different technical reasons than Justice Besanko. The High Court appeal, accordingly, was required to re-examine the question as to whether, under the common law of Australia, "there is a term of mutual trust and confidence to be implied by law in all employment contracts." The court, in dismissing the appeal, observed that the breach of trust implied "is a step beyond the legitimate law-making function of the courts. It should not be taken."