A nasty battle is playing out between McDonald’s and its former CEO

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Earlier this month, McDonald’s sued Easterbrook, which he ousted in November after the board determined he violated company policy by entering into a consensual relationship with an employee. In the lawsuit, McDonald’s alleged that he lied to internal investigators about the extent of his employee relations and demanded that he be ordered to return the money as a result. Easterbrook was promised 26 weeks of severance pay, which at the time amounted to around $ 42 million, according to an estimate by outside firm Equilar.

In a filing Friday, Easterbrook’s lawyers argued that McDonald’s had no reason to recover severance pay.

Former McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook wants the company to drop the lawsuit it has filed against him.

In the company’s lawsuit against Easterbrook, he alleged he misled the board about his relations with employees when he spoke with investigators before leaving the company last year. The McDonald’s lawsuit says the company was made aware of other relationships in July and started a new investigation which found evidence of three sexual relationships.

Evidence of these relationships, according to the lawsuit, came in the form of “dozens of nude, partially nude or sexually explicit photographs and videos of various women,” including photographs of the three employees. Easterbrook reportedly attached the images to emails he sent from his work to his personal account.

In the motion to dismiss, Easterbrook’s lawyers said the revelation of the three additional relationships could not be new to McDonald’s and argued that McDonald’s own investigators allegedly discovered the evidence last year because it was on the company’s servers.

The company “has brought a baseless – and misleading – lawsuit,” its lawyers wrote in the petition. They added that McDonald’s is “a sophisticated entity represented by many internal and external experts” and that it “cannot credibly allege a breach of contract claim.”

The motion also said the lawsuit should have been filed in Illinois, where Easterbrook lives and where McDonald’s head office is located. The lawsuit was filed in Delaware.

A Mcdonalds (MCD) The spokesperson said in a statement that the company “stands by its complaint, both the factual claims and the court in which it was filed.” McDonald’s noted that it was a Delaware corporation in its lawsuit.

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