Friday, June 13, 2014

Ousted CertusBank execs push for jury trial

The three ousted co-founders of CertusBank want to have their day in court.

Milton Jones, Walter Davis and Angela Webb -- who have sued the Greenville, S.C., bank over their firings earlier this year -- filed a motion in court Friday stating that they don't want their case sent into arbitration. They want to help restore their reputation by having the dispute out in public.

In case you need to be caught up, CertusBank was started as a Charlotte holding company by former Bank of America and Wachovia executives. Its business plan was to buy up failed banks and cobble them together into a regional multi-billion bank. But CertusBank soon began racking up losses, and earlier this year some shareholders began questioning what they considered to be lavish expenses, including private jet flights, corporate condos.

In April, Jones, Davis and Webb were fired. They soon sued over their firings, and defended the spending as necessary for the bank and approved by its board. The former executives called letters sent by the skeptical shareholders as libelous and tinged with racism. Jones, Davis and Webb are black.

And in their court document Friday, they use some of the same language:

"Will the Court allow Certus to skulk into arbitration to escape public scrutiny of Defendants’ concerted actions in wrongfully and falsely destroying Plaintiffs’ hard earned professional reputations via racist and professional occupation defamatory statements, or will this Court allow Plaintiffs a public forum to
rehabilitate their professional reputations through the sunlight of a jury trial?"


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Such a shame. You have three black executives ousted. Word to the wise, always watch your back when spending money that is not yours. I don't care if the board approved it our not. The buck stops with you.

Anonymous said...

They claim the lavish spending was part of the plan? Were the millions of dollars in losses part of the plan? I don't think this has anything to do with reputation or racism. It seems the performance or lack there of was the root cause for the firing. Now they want a stage to have their reputations restored....so I guess their lawsuit does not involve any money , since they want to restore their reputation.........

Anonymous said...

You really took the time to write a article about this event? Next time you have that kind of time to waste please call me. I have some papers and plastics to separate in my garage. I will pay you more than the CO in order not to read this garbage. KW Hurley

Anonymous said...

The legal documents and reporting fail to state that the board members are African-American as well. So, I'm curious, are their racism remarked valid?

Anonymous said...

Anon 7:30, The CO would not go that deep in the article. You see that would take research , but I can tell you a majority of the shareholders in NY are not minorities. It does however make a excuse for these 3 bird brains to go on a spending spree then blame others. I can tell you what my bank would do if I sent out and ran up expenses on our corporate card ! White , black or yellow they would throw my backside to the curb. Of course I would expect that as a educated white person. GO figure?