In my last post, I boldly predicted a possible winner—a dark horse if you will—emerging from the new Department of Justice policy announced by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and immortalized in the so-called Yates memo.

But this post is less optimistic. Today, I’m talking about the sure loser post-Yates: the upper-middle executive.

Or, as Ms. Yates memorably described to The New York Times, the Vice President in Charge of Going to Jail.

What does the Yates memo do to squeeze the upper-middle executive like never before?

• The Yates Memo
• White Collar Crime

In the corporate world, the treats offered to executives can be as sweet as stock incentives and cash bonuses. But the tricks can be as sour as individual liability for wrongdoing and salary disgorgement.

NJ Supreme Court Makes It Easier For Employers To Take Back Executive Salaries
Lately, we’ve been discussing the Yates Memo and the alarms it must be sounding in corporate board rooms across the country. In a similar vein, the New Jersey Supreme Court offered little comfort to spooked executives when it recently decided to broaden the remedies available to employers who seek disgorgement of former high-level employees’ salaries.

• Civil Litigation
• Executive Compensation
• Pregnancy Discrimination
• The Inbox
• The Yates Memo
• White Collar Crime

On September 9, 2015, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates issued a memorandum to all Department of Justice attorneys concerning “Individual Accountability for Corporate Wrongdoing.” Referred to as the “Yates Memo,” the memorandum consolidates several statements from other DOJ officials over the past year, memorializes new policy, and reiterates long-established practices. Significantly, the Yates Memo recognizes what every American has understood since the inception of our legal system: living, breathing individuals commit crimes or engage in civil misconduct, not the business entities (fictional “persons”) on behalf of which the individual acts.

• The Yates Memo
• White Collar Crime

The Justice Department issued a memo to United States attorneys nationwide that might have Wall Street executives shifting nervously in their seats. The memo signifies a new focus as it instructs both civil and criminal prosecutors to pursue individuals, not just their companies, when conducting white collar investigations. According to The New York Times, the memo is a “tacit acknowledgement” that very few executives who played a role in the housing crisis, the financial meltdown, and other corporate scandals have been punished by the Justice Department in recent years. Typically when a company is suspected of wrongdoing, the company settles with the government after supplying the authorities with the results of its own internal investigation. This paradigm has led to corporations paying record penalties, while individuals usually escape criminal prosecution. Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates authored the memo and articulated the Justice Department’s new resolve. “Corporations can only commit crimes through flesh-and-blood people. It’s only fair that the people who are responsible for committing those crimes be held accountable.” To achieve this end, U.S. attorneys are directed to focus on individuals from the beginning, and will refuse “cooperation credit” to the company if they refuse to provide names and evidence against culpable employees. And don’t think about naming a fall guy to take the blame. Ms. Yates said the Justice Department wants big names in senior positions. “We’re not going to be accepting a company’s cooperation when they just offer up the vice president in charge of going to jail.” We’ll have more on the Yates Memo and its potential implications in weeks to come.

• Harassment
• The Inbox
• The Yates Memo
• White Collar Crime
• Wrongful Termination

The famous scientist Nikola Tesla was prolific not only in his scientific writings and experiments, but he has also become quite the posthumous eponym. From 80s rock bands to electric car manufacturers, the Tesla name continues to find its way into the headlines. Nikola’s more recent namesake, Tesla Motors (named for Mr. Tesla’s patented AC induction motor), was allegedly the target of a former disgruntled employee, Nima Kalbasi. Prosecutors say that Mr. Kalbasi, a Canadian national and mechanical engineer, hacked the company’s servers. According to The Washington Times, Mr. Kalbasi was terminated on December 3rd of last year, but not before he was able to ferret out his boss’s email credentials. For the next few weeks, according to allegations in Mr. Kalbasi’s criminal case, Mr. Kalbasi repeatedly accessed Tesla’s corporate server to retrieve employee reviews and at least one consumer complaint against the company, which he published online along with some other disparaging commentary. Ironically, Mr. Kalbasi allegedly used in his computer hacking the wireless technology that many credit to Mr. Tesla himself.

• Civil Litigation
• D&O
• White Collar Crime

Federal prosecutors recently indicted David Colletti, a former VP of marketing with MillerCoors LLC, on charges relating to a scheme to embezzle $7 million from the beer brewing giant. Mr. Colletti, a thirty-year veteran of the company, allegedly broke bad by conspiring with others to defraud the company through fictitious invoices for promotional and other events that were never held. According to Law 360, MillerCoors sued its former marketing executive for $13.3 million last year in an effort to recover for the alleged fraud. Prosecutors claim that Mr. Colletti and his co-conspirators used the proceeds to purchase collectible firearms, golf and hunting trips, and—perhaps inspired by Pink Floyd—even bought an arena football team. 

Nanoventions Holdings is a Georgia company that designs and manufactures microstructure technology used to prevent the counterfeiting of such things as currency, driver’s licenses, and event tickets. In 2011, $2 million went missing, and an investigation revealed that that its CFO, Steve Daniels, allegedly forged checks and converted funds to his own use as owner of a company called BIW Enterprises. In an interesting twist, BIW is engaged in the business of growing and distributing marijuana in California. According to Courthouse News Service, the company is suing Mr. Daniels for compensatory, treble and punitive damages under Georgia RICO statutes, and related causes of action.  If the allegations are true, one might find a historical equivalent to these events in the 1920s, when the president of the Loft Candy Company stole thousands of dollars to buy Pepsi-Cola out of bankruptcy.  Loft Candy ended up owning Pepsi on the basis that it was a stolen corporate opportunity.  If Georgia shared Colorado’s stance on marijuana legalization, would the court award ownership of the pot business to Nanoventions?  Oh what a difference a century makes.

• Bankruptcy
• Civil Litigation
• Executive Compensation
• Trade Secrets
• White Collar Crime

Who doesn’t love the year-end countdown?  We’re here to offer you one of our own – our most-read posts in 2014 about executive disputes.  The posts run the gamut from A (Alex Rodriguez) to Z, or at least to W (Walgreen).  They cover subjects from sanctified (Buddhists and the Bible) to sultry (pornographic materials found in an executive’s email).  Later this week, we’ll bring you a look at what to expect in 2015.

Without further ado, let the countdown begin!

8.            The Basics: Dodd-Frank v. Sarbanes-Oxley

This post is an oldie but a goodie.  It includes a handy PDF chart that breaks down the differences in the Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower laws.  Each of these laws continues to be a hot-button issue for plaintiffs and employers.

7.            When Employment Relationships Break Bad

America may have bidden adieu to Walter White and his pals on Breaking Bad, but employment relationships continue to spin off in some very unpleasant ways.  Such was the case with Stephen Marty Ward, who ended up in federal prison after he threatened his employer with disclosure of its trade secrets, as we covered in this post.

• Breach of Contract
• Defamation
• Dodd-Frank Act
• Noncompete Agreements ‎
• Religious Discrimination‎
• Sarbanes-Oxley Act
• Severance Agreements
• Social Media
• The Inbox
• Trade Secrets
• Whistleblowers
• White Collar Crime

Netflix, the internet media giant, sued its former vice president of IT Operations, Mike Kail, in California Superior Court, claiming that he “streamed” kickbacks from vendors and funneled them into his personal consulting company. According to the complaint, Kail—who is currently the CIO of Yahoo—exercised broad latitude in both vendor selection and payment.  Netflix alleges that he took in kickbacks about 12-15% of the $3.7 million that Netflix paid in monthly fees to two IT service providers, VistaraIT Inc. and NetEnrich Inc. According to the Wall Street Journal, one line in particular from the complaint piqued experts’ interest: “Kail was a trusted, senior-level employee, with authority to enter into appropriate contracts and approve appropriate invoices.” According to Christopher McClean, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., this suggests Netflix allowed Kail too much freedom. McClean opined that when individuals are empowered to both choose a vendor and then approve payment, corporate malfeasance can follow.  This is particularly important in the field of information technology, where tech companies vie for business in an ever-competitive market by lavishing incentives on CIOs. Companies that do not incorporate an audit function into vendor selection and payment should consider revisiting their policies going forward.

We recently discussed the hefty $185 million judgment against AutoZone in favor of a former store manager who alleged discrimination and retaliatory discharge following her pregnancy. While this case arose in California, it appears the auto parts retailer is zoned for another similarly-themed legal showdown, this time across the country in West Virginia. In the recent complaint, the plaintiff, Cindy DeLong, claimed that she was placed on a 30-day performance improvement plan for hiring too many women in the stores she managed. She was ultimately fired before the 30 days expired. As you may recall, in the California case, plaintiff Rosario Juarez claimed AutoZone enforced a “glass ceiling” for its female employees, denying them opportunities for promotion. It seems Ms. DeLong managed to chip away at the ceiling as a district manager. But, according to Courthouse News, she now alleges that her practice of hiring women rendered her “not a good fit for the company.”

• Discrimination
• Noncompete Agreements ‎
• Religious Discrimination‎
• The Inbox
• White Collar Crime
• Wrongful Termination

It's no secret on this blog that when   employment relationships go sour,   criminal charges can be one potential     result.  Now we have another example, by way of the recent indictment of Arturas Samoilovas.  

According to the indictment, filed in Ohio federal district court, Samoilovas worked as a contract employee for Eaton Corporation as a financial analyst.  In April 2014, he applied for several full-time positions, but was told that he didn’t get the jobs.  Unhappy about the rejections, Samoilovas “accessed the Eaton Corporation’s computer system,” inserting “certain malicious computer codes … into six … financial spreadsheets.”  If executed, these codes would have resulted in deleted files.  In other words, they were malware. 

• White Collar Crime

Recently, in a government investigation by the civil division of a United States Attorney’s Office, an employee of a private company was deposed pursuant to a Civil Investigative Demand (CID).  The employee, on the advice of counsel, refused to answer questions on certain topics and invoked the Fifth Amendment right against compulsory self-incrimination (she “took the Fifth” in common shorthand).  Several days later, she was fired by her employer for taking the Fifth.  (The employer claimed that it wanted to show cooperation with the government’s investigation and taking the Fifth is viewed as being non-cooperative.)  When I recounted this story to my non-lawyer fiancée, he was outraged and wondered how could her employer do such a thing? Wasn’t this retaliation? Didn’t she have a clear wrongful termination claim against her employer? Good questions. While most, if not all, states (and the federal government) have enacted provisions to protect employees who blow the whistle on illegal activity from retaliatory discharge, is there any protection from discharge for an  employee of a private company who chooses to keep mum to protect herself?

The short answer is no.

In our Bill of Rights, No. 5, it is written that “[n]o person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Although the text limits the right to stay silent in a criminal case, it is generally accepted that a witness may assert the right in any context in which the witness fears his/her statements may later be used against him/her. Thus, as an American I have the right to refuse to answer questions or offer information which I fear could incriminate me. [A full discussion of the scope of Fifth Amendment protection is beyond the scope of this post.  To learn more about the Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination, I refer the reader to The Privilege of Silence, authored by my fellow Zuckerman Spaeder attorneys Steven M. Salky and Paul B. Hynes and available here.]

• Fifth Amendment
• Whistleblowers
• White Collar Crime
• Wrongful Termination