Wednesday, December 10, 2014

It's a Sad Affair

By Jeff Simpson

When Corporations have higher standards than our Government!



Johnson Controls CEO, Alex Molinaroli, recently had an affair with one of Johnson Controls consultants.   The information became public in court records of his divorce from his wife of 28 years.  

This led to a conflict of interest and ethics violations for the CEO who had a total compensation package of $19.5 Million/yr.   After an internal investigation, they did find that Mr. Molinaroli did violate the company's ethics policy.

Tuesday's filing marked the first time that the company had announced that its executive committee found that Molinaroli had violated the Johnson Controls ethics policy, which required him "to timely alert the Audit Committee to a situation that could be perceived to raise issues of conflict of interest," the filing says.
After the investigation, they ended up reducing his compensation by $1,000,000 and firing the consultant.

As a result, the compensation committee of the board reduced Molinaroli's annual incentive performance payment program by 20%. His performance payment was $3.9 million, which the filing says is 20% or $1 million below the maximum payment of $4.9 million that he could have received for his performance last year.
The proxy statement said the board decided to terminate its long-term engagement with Ihle's firm, Lichter & Ihle, "in light of the nature of the work performed by the outside consulting firm for the company and to avoid any perception of conflicts or potential future conflicts.

 If only our elected officials had such an ethics code they had to live up to!



8 comments:

  1. You'd better watch it, Jeff.. you're walking into libel territory here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. really? where is the libel? please point it out

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sure Jeff, right after you hold a former president accountable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You mean, perhaps, George H.W. Bush, who had an affair and was not impeached for it.

      Delete
  4. If you are RFeferring to Bill Clinton, not sure if you know this but the repubs tried to impeach him over his affair.

    Robin Vos got a promotion. Not sure what Litjens got out of leaving her family high and dry....

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm not so sure this case is an example of corporate ethics being better than public-sector ethics. The Johnson Controls compensation committee in one way "cut" Molinaroli's pay, but overall he still made more millions than before. The committee just didn't award him the maximum bonus he could have had. I think GOP lawmakers take most of their cues from private-sector behavior and this one was egregious, is slightly less bad than some others. Consider what likely would have happened if Molinaroli's consort, the woman consultant to Johnson Controls, had been managed by a lowly line staffer out of his cubicle. That staffer likely would be pounding cement right now looking for work, as in fact is the woman, whose contract was terminated. She's a total loser, Molinaroli remains a big cash winner. Ethics that are ethically challenged.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whoops. In that 9:23 AM post, I meant to write "IF slightly less bad than others." Also, I know you were being tongue in cheek, Jeff, but public employees including public elected officials do operate under ethics codes. It's just that our current breed of state elected "leaders" chooses to redefine those ethics requirements on the fly, or ignore them entirely. As long as the voters (and the news media) let those moves go unchallenged, corruption will continue to grow unchecked.

      Delete