Judgment No. SC 26/18 7 Civil Appeal No. SC 164/16 determination should be reviewed and the appellate court may exercise its own discretion in substitution, provided always has the materials for so doing. In short, this court is not imbued with the same broad discretion as was enjoyed by the trial court”. It is trite that the grant of a benefit is at the discretion of the employer and cannot be interfered with unless the employer has, in granting the benefit exercised his discretion capriciously or on a wrong principle. This position was buttressed in First Mutual Life Ltd v Muzivi SC 09-07 where CHEDA JA stated: “Payment of an annual bonus, is generally discretionary on the part of the employer. It could not be said that the employee would have been awarded a bonus under all circumstances. A bonus would have depended on a clear record of performance. Having been suspended, it could not be said that the employee performed so well that he would have been entitled to a bonus.” The above dictum amplifies the principle that the decision to grant or award a bonus to its employee is entirely within the employer’s discretion and is dependent on the employee’s performance. What can be gleaned from the above is that the Arbitrator as well as the court a quo could only interfere with the appellant’s decision to implement a performance-based bonus scheme if it was found that an error had been made or if the employer, in implementing the scheme, had acted on the wrong principle or if the employer allowed extraneous or irrelevant factors to guide or affect it or if it did not take into account some relevant consideration. Regarding the performance-based bonus system, the Labour Court held as follows;