Nomura Settles American Executive’s Wrongful-Dismissal Suit
Nomura Securities Co., Japan’s largest brokerage, has settled a wrongful-dismissal suit filed by an American managing director, agreeing to pay him ¥82 million ($688,000) in compensation without reinstating him.
The Tokyo District Court had ruled in August that Nomura had wrongfully dismissed Seth Friedman, nullifying the dismissal and ordering the company to pay him back salary with interest.
Nomura appealed to the Tokyo High Court in September. The two parties signed a settlement agreement in late December. As part of the agreement, Nomura retracted its dismissal of Mr. Friedman.
Mr. Friedman and Nomura declined to comment.
Mr. Friedman, who worked in Japan as Nomura’s Asia-Pacific head of electronic-trading product management, according to his LinkedIn page, had argued in a suit against Nomura that the company asked him to resign in an attempt to coerce him into relinquishing his right to compensation for an invention, and later unilaterally dismissed him.
In a separate lawsuit, he argued that the invention enables faster trade execution on the brokerage’s electronic platforms. Mr. Friedman had sought compensation for the invention. The Intellectual Property High Court, a special branch of the Tokyo High Court, ruled in July that the company was no longer using Mr. Friedman’s product, so he wasn’t entitled to compensation.
The district court didn’t rule on Mr. Friedman’s contention that he had been fired because of a dispute over pay for his invention. It said Nomura’s stated reason for firing him—a violation of company email rules—was insufficient grounds for dismissal.
Mr. Friedman joined Nomura in 2008 and earned $1.25 million in the 2010 financial year, according to the ruling by the Tokyo District Court over the employment dispute. The company dismissed Mr. Friedman in May 2012, saying he had violated its rules by emailing company documents to his private address, according to the district court’s ruling.
Source: WSJ – Nomura Settles American Executive’s Wrongful-Dismissal Suit
