| Title | Ex-Employees Sue Microsoft in Whistleblower Case | |
| Date | Sunday March 01 2015, @11:27PM | |
| Author | janrinok | |
| Topic | ||
| from the ..it's-always-who-you-know dept. | ||
Two former high-level managers at Microsoft have sued the company, claiming their terminations were in retaliation for raising questions about a well-connected subordinate's expense reports. The subordinate, who is not named in the complaint, allegedly submitted expenses in excess of $22,000 while entertaining Microsoft business partners at South Korean "hostesses bars".
The complaint (embedded in the GeekWire story) provides details. Eric Engstrom and Ted Stockwell both worked for Microsoft throughout the 1990's (the complaint credits Engstrom as being one of the three inventors of the DirectX API), left the company in 1998 or 1999, and returned in 2008 to work in Microsoft's Online Services Division, which was headed by Qi Lu. Engstrom was hired to lead Bing Mobile Program Management; Engstrom hired Stockwell to run a new organization called Bing Mobile International.
Engstrom and Stockwell allegedly created the blueprint for the "Bing as a Platform" (BaaP) initiative within Microsoft in 2010. Shortly thereafter, the unnamed employee ("John Doe") was loaned to Stockwell's fledgling organization by Harry Shum, EVP of Technology and Research; Doe was known to have personal connections to an important Microsoft business partner in Korea. John Doe's expense reports from Korea were submitted to Stockwell for approval.
More down the page...
From the complaint:
Stockwell soon realized that the expense reports Doe had filed were an entire order of magnitude greater than what Stockwell initially understood. Stockwell notified Engstrom, his manager, about the size of the expenses he had approved and told him that he believed Doe was “expensing hostess bars” and potentially prostitution.
The suspicions about the expense reports were reported to Microsoft Human Resources, as well as to Engstrom's superior. An internal investigation was initiated, but an HR representative asked Stockwell to drop the complaint against Doe and to raise his performance rating. Stockwell effectively declined to do so.
Microsoft retained John Doe. The company raised Doe’s performance rating without Stockwell or Engstrom’s involvement, which is a significant departure from company practice. It also permitted Doe to transfer out of the division. Stockwell was told that Harry Shum had stepped in to dismiss the charges against Doe.
Management of the Bing as a Platform initiative that Engstrom and Stockwell developed was taken away from the pair. Following their removal from the initiative they developed, their former managers released and publicly touted the immense potential of Bing as a Platform. Qi Lu, the President of the Online Services Division, was quoted in the press as saying, “Bing as a platform presents the universal platform.”
Both Engstrom and Stockwell received poor ratings in subsequent annual performances reviews, and both were essentially demoted and given lesser responsibilities. In addition, Engstrom was demoted from Level 70 to Level 69.
In 2012, Engstrom and Stockwell started another initiative within Microsoft, codenamed "Brazil", which was an attempt to compete with Amazon in the eCommerce space. According to the complaint, the project was killed by David Ku, a key lieutenant of Qi Lu's (both came to Microsoft from Yahoo!). Engstrom and Stockwell were both terminated in December 2013, along with the few remaining members of their team.
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printed from SoylentNews, Ex-Employees Sue Microsoft in Whistleblower Case on 2024-04-19 23:13:55