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A senior executive at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles sued the automaker for allegedly withholding its pay after cooperating with a US federal inquiry into its sales practices.
Reid Bigland, the company's US sales manager and also his chief executive in Canada, said in a lawsuit as a whistle-blower that FCA had punished him for taking part in an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He said the company had retained bonuses and shares representing about 90 percent of his compensation in 2018 and had tried to scapegoat him, according to the lawsuit in federal court in Detroit.
The bottom of the case is a controversy in 2016 when FCA was forced to revise the monthly sales figures over five years. Some US dealers sued the company, claiming that the FCA had pushed them to submit false sales reports.
The FCA leaked an investigation conducted by the SEC and the Department of Justice on its sales practices in 2016. It denied dealers' claims at the time and said revisions had not affected its quarterly financial statements.
In a statement released on Wednesday, FCA stated that Mr. Bigland's eligibility for "incentive compensation" was conditional upon the board's finding that he had met the "terms of his appointment." business performance and personal performance ".
"Mr. Bigland's eligibility for his award remains subject to this determination and the completion of a board-level badessment of matters that are the subject of government investigations (as previously disclosed by the Board). FCA) with which the FCA continues to cooperate. Beyond that, it would be inappropriate to comment on ongoing litigation or internal compensation processes, "the statement said.
The lawsuit filed by Mr. Bigland alleged that the FCA had violated the laws of the State of Michigan aimed at protecting whistleblowers. The executive has been working for FCA and its predecessors since 1997, and is a member of the executive board of its group, made up of the top 20 employees, according to the lawsuit.
Deborah Gordon, Mr. Bigland's lawyer, told the Financial Times that he still worked for the company. "He works there extremely hard every day," she said.
The claims were filed for the first time in court last month last month, but were transferred Wednesday in federal court by the CAF, which sought to compel Mr. Bigland to resolve the dispute in private through 39, an arbitration.
"Although [the] The complainant calls himself a "whistle-blower", acknowledging in his complaint that the accused, not the complainant, "self-reported" the problem of reporting sales to the SEC, "said the FCA in its petition. continuation of the trial.
In January of this year, Mr. Bigland told the SEC in a written submission that FCA's sales methodology had been in place since the late 1980s, long before becoming a sales manager in the United States, and that She was widely known in society, including at the highest levels. , this alleged lawsuit.
An internal FCA investigation in 2016 revealed no wrongdoing but the company had reported the case to the SEC on the advice of an outside lawyer, the suit added.
Mr. Bigland "testified" for two days about the problem after the SEC asked to meet him, according to the lawsuit, adding that in late 2018, the SEC had suggested "that he confesses to having committed a wrongdoing" in the context of a resolution involving a sanction. to be paid by the FCA.
The SEC did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday.
The FCA became aware of the full "scope" of its testimony before the SEC when it provided a draft text of its submission before forwarding it to the securities regulator, to the requests of the SEC. Mr. Bigland compensation, and informed him last March that she would indefinitely postpone her 2018 bonus and share gains.
Mr. Bigland alleged that the move was a retaliatory action against his testimony and his decision to sell his shares acquired in the automaker, which, according to the lawsuit, "greatly irritated" the company. .
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