Accountants sue former trainee for $55k scholarship

(CNS): Ernst & Young has filed a law suit in the Cayman Islands Grand Court against a former student employee and her father to recover the scholarship she received after she failed to complete her accountancy exams and then resigned from the firm. The suit against Samantha Widmer and Peter Widmer is seeking $55,462.36 plus annual interest at 2.38% since May 2011 and costs. The Cayman branch of the international accountancy and consultant firm claims Widmer (26), a former Young Caymanian Leaders Award finalist and beauty pageant contestant, entered into a scholarship agreement with the firm in 2006, in which it footed the bill for her studies and professional accountancy qualification.

When Widmer failed to complete the accountancy qualification and then later resigned from the firm, the accountants asked for their money back as the deal, they say, had been that once she completed her full time studies she would take and pass the CPA and work at the firm for at least two years.

The firm asked for the money to be returned in November 2010 following her departure from the job, sone after her mother had passed away. Having claimed that she had been unfairly dismissed, Widmer did not return the scholarship fund but a tribunal hearing in July found against her, ruling that she had resigned.

See copy of writ on OfffshoreAlert website.