A consultant was engaged by a large private sector company to help run a tender process for some new software. The process was that tenderers would be short-listed on functional requirements, there would be a detailed evaluation of the short-listed tenders, and then the evaluation panel would look at the prices tendered. While preparing the documents for the panel the consultant was required to remove the pricing information from the body of some of the documents. As a result he became aware that several of the vendors' prices were well above the budget set by the client. At the end of short-listing the consultant thought his manager should know about this problem so that he could deal with it early, and not waste a lot of time evaluating unaffordable tenders. He decided to make sure he was right by checking the prices of all of the tenders. He then told his manager that he had looked at the prices and the business could not afford any of the short-listed proposals. The consultant did not tell his manager or anyone else what the prices were. His manager was very angry that he had disobeyed orders and looked at the prices before the time agreed, and he terminated the consultant's contract without notice. This upset the consultant, because he thought he had done the right thing by his employer. Fortunately another area of the company offered him a different contract soon afterwards. He told them about the issue with the tenders, and they did not think it was a problem. However, two weeks into the new contract his manager went to HR, accused the consultant of professional misconduct and had his new contract terminated without notice. The consultant's agency will not take this issue up with the company because the manager has threatened the agency's other contractors if they did.

Question

a. Do you think the company has been fair? What advice would you give to the consultant?