The lawyers cite the sale of 1 million shares of Stone Webster stock for $15 million to the employee stock plan just a few months before the bankruptcy. ''This rapacious act, impairing the retirement funds of S workers, bordered on criminal misconduct," the plaintiffs say in court papers. They have targeted Stone Webster's accountants, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the insurers in the suit.
Attorneys for Smith and Langford say the executives acted absolutely properly. Smith objected to the kickback scheme when he was first told about it, lawyer Jordan Hershman says, and hired Baker McKenzie to investigate when he learned his original orders had not been followed. Indeed Baker McKenzie, while highly critical of others in the company, is supportive of Smith: ''The CEO has acted consistently in accordance with our advice."
Hershman and John Donovan, Langford's lawyer, defend the accounting as appropriate, and approved by the outside accountants. The proof, they say: The project was eventually built by the Shaw Group, which bought Stone Webster's assets. That project, however, was in China and not Indonesia, and built by another owner. The plaintiffs' attorneys say it was a different project altogether.
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