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ICBC will pay up to $825,000 in severance costs to employees fired for their involvement in questionable practices at an ICBC repair shop, including buying repaired vehicles at cut-rate prices and selling cars without the vehicles' history being disclosed.

The severance will go to employees who were dismissed without cause as a result of an ICBC investigation into practices at its Burnaby-based Material Damage and Research Training facility.

ICBC released details about the severance costs after receiving Freedom of Information requests, including one from The Globe and Mail.

Employees were terminated “without cause” because ICBC's rules about buying vehicles from the repair facility, and other potential conflicts of interest, were not spelled out to employees at the time questionable activity was taking place, ICBC spokesman Mark Jan Vrem said yesterday.

“The investigation determined that there were conflicting policies in place,” Mr. Jan Vrem said.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers investigation, released in July, found 55 vehicles fixed at the repair shop were bought by ICBC employees or by friends or family, often at bargain-basement prices. The investigation also found that concerns about practices at the shop had been reported on three previous occasions before the ICBC announced its investigation this past February, but were not investigated or taken to the company's chief executive officer.

The RCMP are also investigating sales of vehicles from the shop.

Since ICBC announced the investigation, the company has changed its policies to forbid employees or family members to buy any ICBC salvage. The repair shop is now a training facility and no longer fixes cars for the purpose of selling them.

NDP house leader Mike Farnworth yesterday called the severance costs “outrageous.”

“It's $825,000 going to no more than three people – I think the public will be outraged,” Mr. Farnworth said. “And ICBC had to be taken kicking and screaming to provide the information.”

Severance payments could decrease if the people who were fired find new employment during an 18-month notice period.

ICBC provided information on six people related to the investigation.

Two others, who were fired, asked the Privacy Commissioner to review ICBC's decision to release information.

Of the six for whom ICBC was able to provide information, two voluntarily left the company, three were reprimanded but kept their jobs, and one was dismissed without cause.

Heavily blacked-out to protect workers' confidentiality, ICBC documents show employees' involvement ranged from condoning the use of the facility for repairs to private vehicles to using ICBC's auction process to set up purchases for friends and relatives.

One employee bought cars through repair shop auctions, purchased two vehicles through the shop that should have carried “rebuild designations” but did not, and bought both vehicles for substantially below market value.

That employee received a letter of reprimand.

A separate letter chastises an employee for not speaking up when ICBC was looking into the scheme.

“You were aware of the sale of [repair shop] repaired vehicles to employees, and the use of the facility for non-business related purposes (at least on one occasion),” the letter states. “While your involvement in these matters was peripheral, I would have expected you to disclose your knowledge of these practices early in the course of our investigation.”

Former president Paul Taylor resigned this past April to take a new job, saying he'd done all he could to fix the mess after learning about in January.

ICBC is now headed by Jon Schubert, who was named CEO in October and previously held the same role at Saskatchewan Government Insurance.