Fired GC Suing For Retaliation

He maintained he was fired after raising concerns about potential Federal Corrupt Practices Act violations in China and other corporate misconduct, but the CEO of Bio-Rad, a chemical technology company based in Berkeley, CA. said that in the executive ranks of the company “a general sense was that they had lost confidence in Sandy and felt he should be replaced.” The general counsel, Sanford Wadler, was fired in 2013, after 26 years with the company. His whistleblower retaliation lawsuit, filed in 2015, raised the difficult issue of attorney-client privilege in cases where an attorney is suing his or her own company in California, and late last year the court ruled that the Sarbanes-Oxley law preempts California’s ethical rules, and an attorney can introduce privileged information in a SOX whistleblower action. In the current trial, one of the issues raised was general counsel Wadler’s reluctance or delay in filing required SEC documents, but his attorney says that was for good reason: He understood the company was likely understating potential liabilities and was “the voice in the wilderness saying we keep trying to get documents and in the absence of documents we face tens of millions in exposure.” The internal disagreements escalated, with the CFO of the company claiming at one point that she felt personally threatened by him. Meanwhile, the CEO admitted in testimony that he had backdated a performance review one month after firing him. The case is being heard in federal court in San Francisco.