articles by Susan

Rich Guys Who Face Jail Time Can Still Get a Break

Rajat Gupta, the former CEO of McKinsey & Co., was convicted of securities fraud last month, and has until October 18 before he’s sentenced by Federal Judge Jed Rakoff.

Cases like these are a real eye-opener on how things really work if you’ve got a lot of money and a bunch of friends in high places.

When Joe SixPack gets caught on some transgression like cheating on his taxes, little Joe, Jr. may wind up going through grade school without dad making it to his Little League games. But Joe SixPack doesn’t have lawyers like Gupta’s Gary P. Naftalis, who gets his name on those “super lawyer” directories the way some people get their names on the Police Benevolent Association cold-call list. The trick at this point is for Gupta to either win an appeal on his case, or to figure out a way to get Rakoff to hit him with the smallest possible term in prison.

In my Bloomberg View column published today, I discuss the ways that rich people who are found guilty of crimes attempt to influence the judge so that prison terms are minimal. One way to get a judge to go a little easier is to get the right people to make a case that you’re a good citizen who’s done great deeds for society. A web page supporting Gupta, friendsofrajat.com, gives a hint at what Rakoff may be hearing from Gupta’s supporters. Read article

I’m always happy to hear from readers. Please email me at susan.antilla15@gmail.com or send me a message at @antillaview.

 

So what’s an extra $7 billion anyway?

It could have been worse for JP Morgan and its CEO Jamie Dimon: The New York Times might have broken the story on some other day, like when readers weren’t on red alert for today’s Supreme Court ruling on health care. In any event, Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Susanne Craig broke the news this morning that the JPM loss that was supposed to be only $2 billion (aka, the “tempest in a teapot” loss) might wind up being $9 billion. You can read that article here.

I wrote about Dimon in my column “JPMorgan’s Dimon Goes From ‘Least-Hated’ to ‘Most-Embarrassed'” for TheStreet.com in May, calling Dimon “Wall Street’s most cooed-over magazine cover boy.” (I should note that I’ve never seen any cooing over Dimon by Craig, a refreshing exception among financial writers). I’ve seen a lot of top execs get fawned over by business writers over the years, but the adulation of Dimon has for a long time been over-the-top. You can read that story here.

I’m always happy to hear from readers, so feel free to email me at susan.antilla15@gmail.com, or send a message @antillaview.

Lots of secrets when your employer wants to keep your discrimination complaint out of court

Here’s a great example of how hard a company will work to keep its dirty laundry out of the public eye. Ellen Pao, a junior partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, sued the firm for sex discrimination in May. Kleiner filed its response yesterday, denying Pao’s allegations. Along with its denials, Kleiner also said that Pao shouldn’t be in court at all — she signed documents agreeing to arbitration in the event of a dispute, according to Kleiner. If the firm prevails on that, there will be no public record of the dispute after these initial filings.

And it gets worse, according to the Mercury News, which has reported on documents that aren’t yet available on the San Francisco Superior Court website. Not only does Kleiner say that Pao’s case doesn’t belong in court. It also says that the documents that support that argument should be kept under wraps.

Take a look at my Bloomberg column marking the recent 25th anniversary of an important Supreme Court decision that let brokerage firms force customers to use industry-run arbitration instead of court. It’s only gotten worse for investors, consumers, and employees since that June 8, 1987 decision. It’s too early to make a judgment on either side’s arguments in Pao v Kleiner. But the push to keep things quiet is part of a long, worrisome trend.

I’m always happy to hear from readers. To get in touch with me about my articles, email me at susan.antilla15@gmail. com, or, if you’d prefer, send me a message @antillaview.

Forbes.com features me on sexual harassment at work

The first thing the firm will do is to go through every email you’ve ever written, searching for key words or phrases that might make you look bad.

Victoria Pynchon of Forbes.com just interviewed me about tips on sexual harassment in the workplace. Read article

25 Years of Business Dodging the Courts: Happy Anniversary, Folks

It’s happy 25th anniversary to somebody today, but not to you if you’re an investor, a consumer, or an employee who toils outside of the executive suite. On June 8, 1987, the Supreme Court said it was OK for brokerage firms to require customers to give up their rights to court in the event that a broker ripped them off. Instead of open court with public records and annoying reporters who could chronicle the sordid details of abuse of the little guy, investors since then have been stuck in “mandatory arbitration” that’s run by — guess who? — the brokerage industry. Continue reading →

Could Silicon Valley Sex Discrimination Case Get Kicked Out of Court?

Sex discrimination isn’t the iPad, folks. It’s more like
the electric typewriter.

When you see the words “tech” or “venture capital,” you think of brilliant geeks coming up with cool new stuff you’d never heard of before, right? Well tech types are in the 1980s when it comes to sex discrimination cases. Ellen Pao, who sued the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers last month, is claiming that the guys she worked with excluded her from meetings and held fancy dinners with big clients and left the women out. One of her partners said it would “kill the buzz” to have women at one power dinner, according to her suit. We didn’t fix that leaving-the-girls-out thing a couple decades ago?

Kleiner has said the suit is “without merit,” and its star general partner, John Doerr, said in a letter posted on the firm’s website on May 30 that it all amounted to “false allegations against his firm, which boasts “the most” women of any leading venture capital firm. As luck would have it, Kleiner’s woman numbers rose by one the next day, when the firm announced a new partner to focus on investments in consumer internet business, Megan Quinn, would begin in late June.

We’ll see if Pao can even get to court. Kleiner spokeswoman Amanda Duckworth told me in an email that the firm believes Pao’s claims “are covered by an arbitration agreement.” Alan Exelrod, Pao’s lawyer, declined to comment when I asked him if she’d signed anything obligating her to arbitration. Kleiner hasn’t filed any request to have the complaint kicked out of court, but companies in employment disputes usually love the idea of getting a case out of the public eye. Here’s my Bloomberg column on the Pao case and its striking resemblance to lawsuits 20 years past. Read article