Corporate conflict

Boardroom battle, dispute, row, split, coup, reshuffle, shake-up,

compensation, compensation payment, compensation payoff, compensation payout, golden handshake, oust

Journalists, of course, often dramatize disagreements between people, and a disagreement between executives is sometimes described as a boardroom battle, dispute, row or split.

These differences of opinion may lead to changes in boardroom personnel in a boardroom coup, reshuffle or shake-up. (A company’s board of directors meets in the boardroom even if the events described here do not always take place in it.)

Boardroom rows are often followed by dramatic departures, sometimes with a compensation payment, payoff or golden handshakes.

(These expressions are not to be confused with compensation, a technical term used to talk about salaries and benefits in general.) There is sometimes uncertainty as to whether the departing executive resigned voluntarily or was ousted: forced to leave.

1. Dramatic departures. In this account, from The Times, of the ousting of Dave Trott from the GGT agency, explain the use of ‘mere’ in the second line. Do you think the article suggests that £175,000 compensation is a) a lot, b) a little.

Limp Handshake

Dave Trott, the creative genius behind advertising slogans such as ‘Lipsmackinthirstquemchin…’ received a mere £175,000 in compensation when he was ousted from the Gold Greenlees Trott agency last year.

The amount, revealed in GGT’s latest report and accounts, represents only one year’s salary with nothing added for loss of office: curious considering Trott was a founder of the company and is the biggest personal shareholder (акционер), with 5.7 per cent of the equity (акционерный капитал).

Word on the street is that he was negotiating (negotiate вести переговоры) for a far bigger golden handshake in return for a promise that he would not set up in direct competition with his old employer. Trott is now running own advertising agency.

2. Remember what the terms refer to.

Bribery … , embezzlement … , fraud … , do/practice insider dealing/trading … .

3. Try to guess what the following terms refer to, sentences below will help you.

1) Creative accounting … , money laundering … , 2) insider dealing … , 3) fake … , forgery … , 4) market rigging …, scam … .

1) ‘This bank would bribe God,’ admits one employee. It soon becomes clear that BCCI, already famous as the bank used by drug barons (наркобароны) to launder money (отмывать деньги), has taken creative accounting to new heights.

2) The London Stock Exchange (Лондонская фондовая биржа) is investigating several cases of suspected insider dealing in stocks that moved sharply ahead of company’s announcements.

3) Making or faking false documents, banknotes or artworks. These are called forgeries.

4) There has been getting concern about possible market rigging, the allegations having arisen because of unexplained price surges during August and September. There have been complaints from electricity users who ask why prices did not fall during the summer when demand is at its lowest.

5) The Great Nigerian Letter Scam continues, says the company fraud squad. Lettera are still tempting recipients with the offer of millions of dollars if they help transfer money out of Nigeria.

4. Read the article from The Sunday Times and put the events listed below into the order they happened.

a) She opened a restaurant. b) She worked as a waitress. c) She bought bank bonds (облигации). d) Onoue worked in a factory. e) The market crashed (Акции на фондовой бирже упали). f) The forged certificates of deposit (депозитный сертификат) were used to get loans (получать ссуду) from new lenders (кредитор) so she could pay her debts (выплатить долги). g) The banks cut back on her loans (стали снижать ссужаемые суммы). h) She used the bonds to borrow money (брать ссуду в банке). i) She invested the money in bank shares. (Она вложила эти деньги в банковские акции.) j) She traded up to £1 million pounds of shares every day. (Прирост ее капитала от продажи акций составил 1 миллион фунтов ежедневно.) k) She is now in prison. l) She started forging certificates of deposit, with the help of some bankers.