A member of staff recently attended an Industry Exhibition overseas and during the Exhibition lost a Company owned Mobile Phone SIM card that was used for testing purposes. The employee assumed it had been put somewhere safe and wasnt lost just missing. Therefore it was left unreported for a period of 10 days before it was finally reported lost, during which time someone had obviously found the SIM Card and utilised it running up a bill of over £1000, the employee managed to get the bill reduced by half but the company was still liable for paying the remainder of the bill. Should the employee be held responsible for reimbursing the company and where do we draw the line if this is the case? Can anyone offer any guidance with this matter, we as a company have not in the past requested staff to be held responsible for errors or mistakes.

thank you
Sheena Rimmer