By K.C. Vijayan, Law Correspondent

A FORMER chief financial officer for a Singapore Flyer-linked company has won his case for the firm to pay him $225,000, part of a bonus promised to him when he was hired.

Mr Michael Spitz, 40, worked for GWC Holdings from December 2007 to December last year, when he was asked to leave.

Unhappy with the German national's performance, the company refused to pay the rest of the $275,000 sign-on bonus promised in his contract.

Such bonuses are often included in corporate contracts to lure attractive hires.

Now the company has been ordered by the High Court to pay $280,000 to MrSpitz, which includes 24,500 pounds (S$54,700) that he claims were unpaid approved expenses.

Mr Spitz was working for Nomura, a global finance house, in its London office when he was hired in 2007 by GWC.

GWC is the designer and operator of the giant Ferris wheel managed by Singapore Flyer, which is itself facing potential action from eight tenants. The tenants want compensation for business losses after a six-hour stoppage last December led to a month-long closure for repair.

Mr Florian Bollen, who is chairman of both GWC Holdings and the Singapore Flyer, said in his written submissions to the court that Mr Spitz had not done well on the job.

Among other things, he had been given the task of raising equity funds from potential investors for a project in Orlando, Florida, worth more than US$100 million (S$150 million), which he allegedly failed to do.

It was also claimed that most of his accounting and finance work had been done here by two senior staff, rather than by him.

Mr Bollen also claimed that Mr Spitz had left the company on the understanding that GWC would not take issue with his job performance and seek compensation if he did not make a claim on the bonus. GWC said it had held several discussions with Mr Spitz about it last year.

Mr Spitz rubbished the claims through his lawyers from Lee & Lee, and said he decided to sue GWC after he became aware of the difficulties they were facing.

Assistant Registrar Saqib Alam held there was no evidence of any oral agreement to vary the terms of Mr Spitz's employment contract and the sums were due as claimed.

The summary order is the first court setback for GWC, which has now hired Drew & Napier lawyers to appeal against the decision, to be heard later this month.

In a separate judgment released last month, the High Court ruled that a consultant who worked for only five months before his services were terminated by a firm was entitled to a US$250,000 sign-on bonus he was initially promised, in addition to his salary.

Mr Henry Goh, an engineer, testified that if it had not been for the bonus, he would not have left his old firm to become a vice-president in American- based AspenTech.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.