A top executive at Amazon who sued the company for more than £100,000 due to 'burnout' from 80-hour weeks and 'impossible' deadlines has won a payout. 

Sean Rebecchi, 38, claimed staffing issues and a 'corporate culture' of overwork and promotion-chasing at the tech giant led to him suffering a major mental breakdown.

Already vulnerable to stress after working 80-hour weeks in another Amazon division, Mr Rebecchi said he was told 'this is how we do things' when he complained about 'impossible' work deadlines on the Alexa AI project.

Despite moving to another company within the group, he eventually succumbed to a breakdown and sued for more than £100,000, complaining that the 'burnout' had caused a 'severe mixed anxiety and depressive disorder'.

But two of the Amazon companies he had worked for defended the High Court claim, accusing Mr Rebecchi of being a 'perfectionist' who worked hard because he wanted to get promoted.

Lawyers for the companies denied that he was expected to work 'excessively long hours' by the standards of a well-paid senior executive.

However the case has now settled before it could be tried by a judge, with Amazon agreeing to the 'payment of sums' which are being kept confidential, as well as Mr Rebecchi's legal costs.

According to claim documents, Mr Rebecchi had performed various programme manager roles at Amazon companies, as well as a position as a customer solutions manager.

His barrister, Simon Plaut, said Mr Rebecchi was a 'highly regarded, conscientious, motivated and hard-working individual' who had been subject to a 'corporate culture' of excessive work at Amazon, where promotion-chasing was expected.

'It was expected and/or anticipated that employees would work very long hours under high pressure and, where projects dictated, they would regularly collaborate with colleagues in the US, in wholly different time-zones,' he said.

'A management and pay structure existed which actively promoted, encouraged and/or required employees to seek promotion.

'Successful promotion demonstrated the employees' intrinsic worth and/or value to the defendant and/or improved their status within the defendant and/or ensured that their pay increased at more than the rate of inflation.'

He said Mr Rebecchi's employment from March 2016 to August 2017 in one Amazon company was characterised by 'excessive workload' and the constant 'shifting of goalposts' in terms of meeting targets to win promotion.

It led to Mr Rebecchi working longer hours - more than 80 hours per week at times - and by February 2017 he was suffering anxiety, heart palpitations and trouble sleeping, he said.

He moved to Amazon Music in August 2017, but the allegedly excessive workload continued there and in November 2020 he moved to Amazon Development Centre (London) Ltd to work on the Alexa project as a senior programme manager.

The barrister said his work at Alexa was also characterised by 'excessive' workloads, goalpost shifting in relation to promotion and a lack of effective support.

'As a result of this period of work, the claimant began to suffer from severe fatigue and low mood,' he said.

Due to the need to demonstrate technical competence in order to achieve promotion, Mr Rebecchi was given responsibility for writing the company's Natural Language Question & Answering 2022 plan, said the barrister.

However, the deadline he was given was short and he complained repeatedly that it was 'impossible' to meet, only to be told, 'this is the way we do things in Amazon,' he said.

Mr Rebecchi was also told that someone of his level should be able to deliver the work on time, which the barrister claimed 'was an attempt to shame or embarrass him into trying to work even harder.'

Completing the work proved to be 'extremely stressful,' with the pressure of an 'impossible time constraint' leading to 'burnout.'

He said the impact of the pressure and overwork while working on the Alexa project led to Mr Rebecchi having sickness absences due to stress.

He moved to Amazon Web Service EMEA SARL (UK Branch) in June 2022 as a customer solutions manager, but again complained of an excessive workload, as well as a 'hostile' manager.

'The claimant's mental health deteriorated,' he continued.

'He suffered increasingly severe symptoms of anxiety, depression, low mood, together with an array of symptoms, including poor concentration, irregular sleep, fatigue, panic attacks and reduced self-confidence.'

Accusing Amazon of negligence, Mr Plaut alleged that there had been a failure to assess the risks to him or to implement an effective stress at work policy, while he carried out 'unrealistic, unattainable and/or excessive workloads, targets and/or deadlines'.

However Amazon defended the claim, arguing that it had 'reasonably understood the claimant to be an employee of normal fortitude and resilience.'

'Generally, the defendant will contend that the claimant's alleged psychiatric injury was not reasonably foreseeable before or very shortly before he was signed off sick and/or that it did not fail to take any steps it ought to have done,' said its barrister, Andrew McLaughlin.

'The characterisation of the culture and/or work environment at the defendant as one that inherently created a reasonably foreseeable risk that a senior executive would suffer a psychiatric injury is denied.

'It is denied the claimant's various roles in senior executive posts were liable to cause him to develop a psychiatric illness or injury, nor that it was reasonably foreseeable that he would do so.

'The defendant was entitled to assume the claimant would withstand the usual pressures of his various roles.

'The claimant was expected to work conscientiously and diligently and was well remunerated for doing so.

'The claimant was not expected to work excessively long hours or to do so for long periods, judged by the standards of a well-paid senior executive.

'The claimant did not have to work regularly at haphazard and/or unusual hours. Insofar as he did so whilst working on the NL Q&A 2022 plan, that was for a limited period of time only - 23 November 2021 to February 2022. 

'He voluntarily took ownership of that project because he wanted to "get on" and it finished over a year before he went off sick.

'The claimant's devotion to his work in the hope of achieving promotion does not mean that his workload was excessive.

'If the claimant chose to work long hours in order to get on within the company, that was down to him - he was not forced to do so.

'If there were times the claimant experienced a degree of stress arising from his work, that does not mean that it was reasonably foreseeable that he would or might suffer a psychiatric illness.'

He said senior executives in modern companies do sometimes experience work-related stress, but that does not mean their employer is at fault.

'Any reasonably high-level job will come with its own pressures and demands, and the roles the claimant undertook were not so demanding the claimant was liable to suffer a psychiatric illness,' he continued.

'It appears...that the claimant was a perfectionist and that his anxieties resulted from the high standards he set himself.

'The defendant was/is not responsible for the fact the claimant was a perfectionist and it was in no way at fault because the claimant did not achieve promotion every time he thought he should get it and/or was not paid as much as he believed he should have been paid.'

The case was filed last July, but in a settlement signed off by a judge, Master Stephen Byass, the parties have now agreed to settle the case.

According to the order filed at the High Court, the settlement will see Amazon paying a confidential sum, as well as Mr Rebecchi's legal costs of bringing the claim.

'Upon payment of the sums...the defendants shall be fully and finally discharged from any further liability to the claimant arising out of or in connection with this personal injury claim,' it states.