Media

Government Investigates Former CBS CEO Mooves

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: September 29, 2018 7:50 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 5:08 pm

CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) has disclosed more trouble due to sexual harassment charges against its former chief executive officer, Les Moonves. The company got subpoenas from the New York County District Attorney’s Office and the New York City Commission on Human Rights. CBS received another demand on the same issues from the New York State Attorney General’s Office

The CBS board already has two law firms investigating the same allegations about Moonves and “cultural issues at all levels of CBS.”

Moonves’s career has been destroyed, and a possible $120 million severance package almost certainly will not be paid to him if the allegations prove to be accurate.

CBS also faces numerous class action suits that complain the CBS board should have disclosed the matters regarding Moonves. One, from Pomerantz, reads:

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company’s business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) CBS executives, including the Company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Leslie “Les” Moonves, had engaged in widespread workplace sexual harassment at CBS; (ii) CBS’s enforcement of its own purported policies was inadequate to prevent the foregoing conduct; (iii) the foregoing conduct, when revealed, would foreseeably subject CBS to heightened legal liability and impede the ability of key CBS personnel to execute the Company’s business strategy; and (iv) as a result, CBS’s public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

The period runs from February 14, 2014, through July 27, 2018, and covers people who bought shares during that time.

The legal charges against CBS continue to grow.