Like 'a bad Hollywood movie'
By Martha Entwistle
Updated Mon June 30, 2008
Thanks for the all the inquiries, but, yes, I did make it back home from Nashville alive. You're all so sweet to worry after my safety.
Anyhoo, the old email box is filled to brimming, but I couldn't let this story out of Canada slip by me without comment:
A former Garda executive says the company threatened to kill him if he leaked financial information. And now Garda is suing him back for defamation.
Garda World Security Corp. says it will initiate a defamation lawsuit against a "disgruntled" former executive who has alleged the company threatened to kill him and his family if he spoke out about its financial problems.
Richard Irvin, whose family sold its California-based ATI Systems cash logistics business to Garda last year for $395 million, alleges in a legal action filed in Los Angeles that CEO Stephan Cretier told executives last November he would use Garda's security operatives to investigate any leak of financial information, and would kill any executive and the family of any executive found responsible for a leak.
You know, I've spoken with Cretier, and he seemed like a pretty mild-mannered dude. I'm kind of doubting he told people he would kill them if they leaked financial data. Maybe it was a translation thing - you know how the French and the English gets mish-mashed together up there in Canada.
Does this look like a guy who makes death threats?
Garda gets bonus points in the argument for this rebuttal:
Irvin's charges are "totally false, outrageous and without merit," and the company "refuses to take seriously such ridiculous allegations that resemble the plot of a bad Hollywood movie," Garda World said in a statement yesterday.
"The calumnious allegations are a blatant attempt to destroy Garda's good name and reputation in a pernicious and defamatory attempt to extort additional severance compensation from the company."
First, you get the "bad Hollywood movie" jab, which I've always found pretty impenetrable. Did you do something really shady? Well, then just deny it and say, "that sounds like a bad movie." Because stuff that happens in movies can never happen in real life. That's like a law or something.
Then, the Garda spokespeople start dropping the $5 words. Calumnious? Kapow! Pernicious? Shazam! I'm thinking this Irvin guy should just fold up his little tent right now and go home.
Garda gets bonus points in the argument for this rebuttal:
Irvin's charges are "totally false, outrageous and without merit," and the company "refuses to take seriously such ridiculous allegations that resemble the plot of a bad Hollywood movie," Garda World said in a statement yesterday.
"The calumnious allegations are a blatant attempt to destroy Garda's good name and reputation in a pernicious and defamatory attempt to extort additional severance compensation from the company."
First, you get the "bad Hollywood movie" jab, which I've always found pretty impenetrable. Did you do something really shady? Well, then just deny it and say, "that sounds like a bad movie." Because stuff that happens in movies can never happen in real life. That's like a law or something.
Then, the Garda spokespeople start dropping the $5 words. Calumnious? Kapow! Pernicious? Shazam! I'm thinking this Irvin guy should just fold up his little tent right now and go home.
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