Tag: injured CFO

…Continued from previous post (published on June 30th)

Unfortunately, even with all this tremendous efforts, business continued to contract.  First of all, the economy was unraveling: the global credit crunch was at its peak  in 2009 and consumers did not have money to pay their debts.  Secondly, the new government regulations helped debtors not to pay and settle at a fraction of the value instead.  In this conditions the bosses decided to go on the other side of the business - to open a set of new companies operating in loan modification and debt restructuring sector.

They have approached MJ with this idea and promised her that she would continue to carry out all financial executive responsibilities in the new business as well.   While still taking care of the old business, she helped them to set up all new companies.  Of course, there were not enough capital to start it up at a full speed.  The two businessmen approached MJ and asked her for a  $150,000 120 days personal loan to help the new business to catch a breath.

Dear readers, please don't judge my friend.  Let me tell you that MJ is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met.  She fully understood the risks.  However, it was clear to her that if she refused, they would have fired her right away: these are average entrepreneurs we frequently discuss – just like the rest of them, they let their emotions run their brains.  This was (and, as we know, still is) a very bad time to be an out-of-job CFO approaching 50.  It was also inconceivable  to think that these two people, whom she helped to survive, would cheat her out of her personal savings.  So, she landed the money to the new law firm. 

Ninety days later, one month before the loan was due for repayment, they fired her using an independent consultant, locked her out of the offices and built a Chinese Wall between themselves and her. 

Now, out of job and out of money, she tried to work with the attorney they appointed to deal with her on their behalf.  She was told that they could not repay her money in full on the agreed due date.  All kinds of unacceptable installment deals were suggested to her with various crazy conditions.  Of course, their lawyer employed all the tricks up her sleeve to drag the matter as long as she could – the delaying tactics were unmatchable.  And as soon as she agreed to one of their installment plans, the communications stopped altogether.  

Meanwhile, all the aggravation of her predicament and anxiety affected her health – she had an acute cardiac episode and ended up on a surgeon's table.  Her condition is managed by several medications now, but it was concluded by her doctors that she must not deal with this tragic matter directly.

So, MJ is looking for an attorney to represent her in order to get these amoral bastards to pay her back.  By the way, she has a multi-page list of misdeeds, violations, and frauds these people has committed against their business partners, clients, etc., etc. 

The most heartbreaking thing is that this woman has immigrated into the US as a political refugee 20 years ago with $90 in her pocket.  She has built herself up from ground zero only to be robbed of her hard-earned money and thrown out on the street by two ruthless monsters who still enjoy all of their businesses, multi-million dollar residences and summer houses in the Hamptons.

If any of my readers know an attorney who might be interested in this case, please email me at the.frustrated.cfo@gmail.com. 

Note: the law firm that borrowed the money has presence in PA, NJ and NY.

Let me say right away that it is impossible to even come up with a short definition for an attorney who would act on behalf of an employee.  That is why I had to devise such an expository title for this post.  But I am trying to help my fellow financial professional and a good friend MJ who has a very unique and quite a complicated case against her former employer.  What happened to her is strikingly unfair (there are details below) and I figured I would try to put a word out there through my blog in hopes of may be receiving some legal referrals from my readers.   

It appears that 99% of the lawyers listed as "labor litigators" work for the other side (the one with the deeper pockets), defending corporations against employees in court and advising them on preventative measures to make sure that they don't get sued in the first place.  Of course, there are plenty of injury specialists ready to jump on a work-related-accident case and civil rights defenders on a lookout for sexual harassment claims.  But apparently it is difficult to find somebody to stand on the side of an employee with a less obvious case.

I am pretty confident that MJ's case is one of a kind combination of various legal matters and an intelligent attorney may find it to be an interesting challenge.  It would possibly require ten posts to cover all details, and I don't find it necessary or productive.   Instead, I will try to stick to main facts only and present them in two consecutive installments.

The employer in question was a consumer debt management entity, which consisted of multiple collection agencies with a national law firm at the head of the structure.  Two business partners helmed the operations – an attorney (senior partner at the law firm) and a shrewed businessman who handled all operational and commercial activities.  Remarkably they have managed to ride the wave of debt securitization and succeeded, in spite of themselves, without any executive support - growing into an organization that employed over 500 people in 10 states, while all their accounting and financial functions were "handled" by an outside service of a one-person CPA firm!!!

By the end of 2007, though, the company started experiencing difficulties.  In the absence of budgets, cash flow projections, profitability analysis, and, more importantly, an insight of a seasoned expert, they couldn't even understand what was going wrong.

That was when MJ got hired as a Chief Financial Officer.  Putting all the necessary functions and instruments in place, dissecting the business's performance and fixing incorrectly kept books, allowed her to discover the weakest links in their falling apart system.  She suggested drastic restructuring, shut down the sectors that were bleeding money and got them out of disadvantageous financing relationships – in other words, saved their assess from going under several times over.

To be continued…