By Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer
McDonald's former CEO is asking a court to dismiss the company's lawsuit against him, calling it "meritless and misleading."
Chicago-based McDonald's sued Stephen Easterbrook last week, seeking to reclaim millions of dollars in compensation paid to him. McDonald's fired Easterbrook without cause last November after he admitted to exchanging videos and text messages in a consensual, non-physical relationship with an employee. A search of Easterbrook's cell phone confirmed that account.
But McDonald's said it conducted a second investigation last month after it received an anonymous tip that Easterbrook had a physical relationship with another employee. McDonald's said it has since found that Easterbrook had sexual relationships with three employees and destroyed evidence.
The company's board says it would not have agreed to Easterbrook's separation agreement — which allowed him to keep more than $42 million in stock-based benefits — if it had that information when he was fired.
In a response filed late Friday in Delaware Chancery Court, Easterbrook said McDonald's hired outside attorneys to investigate his conduct, including interviewing employees and reviewing electronic information, before it signed off on his separation agreement.
"McDonald's is improperly attempting to get out of its bargain nine months after the fact and despite admitting it always possessed the information upon which is it now relying," Easterbrook's response reads.
Easterbrook also claims the case should be tried in Illinois, not Delaware.
McDonald's rejected Easterbrook's arguments Monday.
"McDonald's stands by its complaint, both the factual assertions and the court in which it was filed," a spokesperson for the company said.
Sean “Diddy” Combs seeks bail, citing changed circumstances and new evidence
Sean "Diddy" Combs filed a new request for bail on Friday, saying changed circumstances, along with new evidence, mean the hip-hop mogul should be allowed to prepare for a May trial from outside jail.
Lawyers for Combs filed the request in Manhattan federal court, where his previous requests for bail have been rejected by two judges since his September arrest on racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees, while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
He has been awaiting a May 5 trial at a federal detention facility in Brooklyn.
In their new court filing, lawyers for Combs say they are proposing a "far more robust" bail package that would subject the entertainer to strict around-the-clock security monitoring and near-total restrictions on his ability to contact anyone but his lawyers. But the amount of money they attach to the package remains $50 million, as they proposed before.
They also cite new evidence that they say "makes clear that the government's case is thin." That evidence, the lawyers said, refutes the government's claim that a March 2016 video showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend occurred during a coerced "freak off," a sexually driven event described in the indictment against Combs.
They wrote that the encounter was instead "a minutes-long glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship" between Combs and his then-girlfriend.
The lawyers argued that the jail conditions Combs is experiencing at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn violate his constitutional... Read More