Details of the departure of the former president of Ford of Europe, Martin Leach, have emerged in a lawsuit filed in a United States court.
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Leach has sued Ford Motor Company, claiming it misrepresented his departure from the car maker in August and prevented him from taking the reins at Fiat Auto, an Automotive News report said.
The report said that Leach alleges that the company forced him out, then wrongly announced that he had resigned.
According to Automotive News, a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in US District Court in Detroit alleges that Ford had been trying to push Leach out of his job.
The lawsuit says that on August 7, Leach met with David Thursfield, Ford’s executive vice president of international operations, to discuss how he could leave the company on mutually agreeable terms, the report said.
John Walker, another Ford executive in that meeting, asked Leach if he had another job offer and, according to the lawsuit, Leach said yes, Automotive News added.
Leach then sought to discuss the two-year non-compete clause in his contract – he wanted an agreement that Ford would not attempt to enforce the clause, the report said.
Thursfield said he “would think about it,” the lawsuit said, according to Automotive News, which added that he and Walker then left the meeting, saying they wanted to speak to the company’s top management in Dearborn, Michigan.
According to Automotive News, the lawsuit says that Leach did not resign at the meeting and did not say “anything remotely resembling a resignation.”
Thursfield approached Leach later day and “proclaimed that he was taking it that Leach had resigned,” the report said.
But Leach told Thursfield that he had not resigned and reported for work the next day, the lawsuit says, according to Automotive News, which added that, during a meeting on August 8, Thursfield repeated that he would assume that Leach had resigned.
“You’re now with your new employer,” Thursfield told Leach, the lawsuit says, according to the report, which added that, again, Leach said that he had not resigned.
Automotive News reported that Thursfield later that day said that a press release would be issued stating that Leach had resigned and the release was issued on August 12.
The report said that, on August 27, Fiat named former Volkswagen manager Herbert Demel as chief of its car unit and noted that the lawsuit says that the Fiat job offer depended on Leach being free of the non-compete clause.
Had Leach been fired, he would not have violated the non-compete clause, Automotive News said.
The report added that Ford of Europe, still struggling to return to profit, declined to comment because the issue is legally pending.
