TMB Harassment Investigation: 3 Officials Under Scrutiny

BarcelonaThree senior officials of Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) will testify before the judge next February 10, investigated for a possible crime of old-fashioned workplace harassment compliance of the company, who was fired in October 2024. As it has progressed Eldiario.esthe judge handling the case has charged the CEO, Xavier Flores, the director of human resources and the head of legal services. The declarations, in the phase of preliminary proceedings, come after several investigations and cross-denunciations within the company that manages the bus and metro network in the city of Barcelona.

When he worked as compliance and was in charge of internal investigations, the complainant opened a file for an alleged case of workplace harassment of a female worker that affected the top management of TMB. In this case, two managers. According to her account, she was pressured not to proceed with the internal investigation and, even from management, an attempt was made to modify the resolution she had concluded. “Have you thought about the future of these three managers?”, they told him, according to his testimony, so that the file would cease. “What you should have done is not investigate,” they warned her. A story that TMB considers “false”, since they defend the “innocence” of the three accused persons and “flatly” deny the harassment against the ex-compliance.

In February 2024, TMB dismissed the complainant. After several conversations with her bosses, especially with management, she decided to go to the Antifraud Office (OAC), which granted her the status of a protected person. However, in October of the same year, she was fired after a complaint of workplace harassment was filed against her. A few weeks earlier, on September 13, 2024, through an email, she was informed of the precautionary measures agreed by the company, among which it was specified that she be absent from her workplace in order not to “interfere” in the investigation that had been initiated against her.

She was subsequently fired in October after an investigation by an outside firm concluded there had been “serious” harassment of a worker. A case that moved to ordinary justice and was filed. According to the documentation to which the ARA has had access, the complainant maintains that TMB removed her and subsequently also reported her for harassing a subordinate as retaliation for its internal investigation.

In December 2024, the Prosecutor’s Office also filed the initial complaint that the ex-compliance instructed internally against the two managers of TMB. The company highlights, precisely, the fact that this case ended up being filed and says that, therefore, “there is no causal relationship between this fact and the dismissal” of the complainant. In this sense, TMB assures that his role change came after Flores’ first 100 days at the head of the public company, when he decided to carry out an internal remodeling that affected, among others, the position held by the ex-compliance.

In a 2025 report, the OAC ruled that the dismissal was part of a possible case of retaliation. TMB maintains that, despite knowing the complainant’s status as a protected person, they were informed of the decision they had to take against her.