McDonald's sues CEO it sacked last year; alleges he covered up relations with 3 employees

American fast food company McDonald’s announced on Monday that it has filed litigation against its former CEO Steve Easterbook accusing him of lying about his sexual relationships with employees. Easterbook was fired by the company in 2019 on finding out about his relationship with an employee. However, according to reports, the firm has said that further investigation revealed that its ex-CEO had three additional relationships with the company’s staff and lied about them to the board. McDonald's is suing him to recover his pay-off that is reportedly worth $40 million. 

At the time Easterbook was fired last year, McDonald's had said that it only had evidence of non-physical, consensual relationship consisting intimate text messages as well as video calls. The firm then agreed to remove the CEO’s contact ‘without cause’ in the rising fears of protracted legal battle, as per the legal filing by McDonald's.

However, after a recent indication by an employee in July, the California-based company is now starting a second investigation on the basis of “undisputable evidence” of Easterbook’s three other relationships. 

In a statement released on the official website titled as “Adhering to Our Values”, current McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said, “We recently became aware through an employee report of new information regarding the conduct of our former CEO, Steve Easterbrook”.

The firm reportedly also said that it has uncovered intimate pictures exchanged between the ex-CEO of McDonald's with employees on company’s email account. The messages showing his approval of granting company shares worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to one of the staff members “shortly after their first sexual encounter”.

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Easterbook ‘lied’ and ‘destroyed evidence’

Kempczinski, said in a statement that was originally shared with firms’ all employees as an email, that Easterbook not only deviated from company values in ‘extensive ways’ but also tried ‘lied’ and ‘destroy evidence’. Citing the “new information” in relation to the ex-CEO, Kempczinski said that the decision of filing the litigating to recover the compensation he retained on his departure was taken by the company board.

 McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said, “We recently became aware through an employee report of new information regarding the conduct of our former CEO, Steve Easterbrook. We now know that his conduct deviated from our values in different and far more extensive ways than we were aware when he left the company last year.”

“While the Board made the right decision to swiftly remove him from the Company last November, this new information makes it clear that he lied and destroyed evidence regarding inappropriate personal behaviour and should not have retained the contractual compensation he did upon his exit,” he added. 

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Image: AP