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Employees Gone Wild!

Christine N. EsckilsenAssistant General Counsel and Managing Director

Piper Jaffray & Co.

David J. LauthSenior Associate General Counsel, Employment Law

UnitedHealth Group Incorporated

Paul G. OmodtVice President, Crisis and Critical Issues, Government Affairs and Media Relations

Padilla Speer Beardsley

Zachary W. CarterRoy A. Ginsburg

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

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Domino’s Pizza Scandal

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Criminal Charges

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Fallout

• Both employees faced criminal charges for food contamination

• Domino’s received a great deal of negative press

• Some credit the incident as the catalyst for Domino’s most recent advertising campaign which focuses on food quality

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Nurse Steals Pain Medication

StarTribuneCharges: Nurse shoots up, patient

“YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO MAN UP HERE AND TAKE SOME PAIN.”

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“Man up here and take some of the pain”

• Registered nurse at Abbott Northwestern Hospital

• Reportedly stole about two-thirds of pain meds from patient about to undergo surgery

• Told the patient to “man up here and take some of the pain” and to “go to your happy place”

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Nursing Home Abuse

Good Samaritan Society Care CenterAlbert Lea, MN

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Nursing Home Abuse

• Six teenaged employees of the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society care center

• Charged criminally for actions including spitting on, poking, sexually touching, and taunting vulnerable elderly residents

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Fallout

• Several of the employees entered into plea agreements, including one sentenced to 180 days in jail on top of two years probation

• The nursing home faced at least seven civil lawsuits based on the charges, alleging millions of dollars in damages

• Terrible publicity

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McDonald’s Manager Strip Search

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Gullible Manager

• Someone called a McDonald’s restaurant, posing as a police officer

• The caller convinced a manager that a female employee had stolen a customer’s wallet and that the manager needed to strip search the employee

• The female manager and, later, her then-fiancé strip searched the 18-year-old employee in a back office

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Lawsuits

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Fallout

• Covered by a number of major news networks

• Both the manager and her then-fiancé faced serious criminal charges

• The employee sued McDonald’s Corp. and won a $6.1 million jury verdict, which was upheld on appeal

• The manager also sued McDonald’s Corp. and was eventually awarded $500,000 in damages

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AFLAC Duck Tweeting Scandal

• Gilbert Gottfried was the voice of the popular AFLAC duck

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Popular Commercials

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Tsunami Tweets• Two of Gottfried’s less offensive Tweets:

“My Japanese doctor advised me to stay healthy I need 50 million gallons of water a day.”

“Japan called me. They said “maybe those jokes are a hit in the US, but over here, they’re all sinking.”

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Fallout

• Over 75% of AFLAC’s business is in Japan

• According to AFLAC’s corporate overview: “Aflac Japan is the number one insurance company in Japan in terms of individual policies in force and the largest foreign insurer in Japan in terms of premium income. Aflac Japan also ranks first in the number of individual policies in force among all of Japan’s life insurers and is the fifth most profitable foreign company in any industry in Japan.”

• Gottfried was very quickly fired

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The Collapse of Barings Bank

• 28-year-old futures trader at Barings was tasked with oversight of his own trades

• Lost £827 million ($1.3 billion), over twice the bank’s trading capital

• Barings, the oldest merchant bank in London, collapsed and was purchased by ING for £1

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“Rogue Trader”

• The trader wrote a book about the incident

• The book was made into a movie, portraying the trader as something of a hero

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Ford Trade Secret Theft

• Ford design engineer copied over 4,000 sensitive Ford documents onto an external hard drive

• The documents included secret designs of Ford engine-transmission systems and electric power supply systems

• The engineer then resigned from Ford and eventually went to work for a Chinese auto manufacturer

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Fallout

• The U.S. Attorney’s Office brought a criminal case against the engineer

• He eventually pleaded guilty and now faces 70 months in prison followed by deportation to China

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Hewlett-Packard Mark Hurd Scandal

• Mark Hurd was HP’s CEO and board chair (he replaced Dunn)

• He was extremely successful running the company

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Hewlett-Packard Mark Hurd Scandal

• Hurd became enamored with an actor-turned-marketing consultant, who had done some workfor HP

• Hurd allegedly fudged personal expense reports to hide thousands of dollars spent on the consultant

• An internal investigation determined that Hurd had violated HP policy, and Hurd resigned under pressure

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Fallout

• Following Hurd’s resignation, HP’s stock quickly dropped over 8%, representing market capitalization of almost $9 billion

• Hurd received over $12 million in severance, as well as stock options worth over $22 million

• Shareholders brought a derivative suit based on Hurd’s departure and resultant fallout

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More Fallout

• Hurd was quickly named co-president of the board of HP-competitor, Oracle

• Oracle’s CEO sent an email to the New York Times stating: “the HP Board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the AppleBoard fired Steve Jobs many years ago. That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn't come back and saved them. HP had a long list of failed CEOs until they hired Mark who has spent the last five years doing a brilliant job reviving HP to its former greatness”