More legal trouble for Lotus, the struggling sportscar maker. After recently sacked CEO Dany Bahar filed a claim against the Hethel company and its Malaysian parent DRB-Hicom for wrongful dismissal, UK’s Financial Times now report that two senior executives that have been dismissed for “gross misconduct” are taking Lotus to an employment tribunal.
The two, who are former heads of legal and human resources, have worked for Lotus for six and 17 years respectively. They are claiming unfair dismissal, harassment, and sexual, religious and racial discrimination.
People familiar with the case also say that they faced “intense interrogation sessions” by the company’s new management, brought in by DRB-Hicom. FT‘s report adds that some staff believe the new owners want to “Malaysianise” management at the company.
Ex-boss Dany Bahar was sacked by DRB-Hicom in June, following the results of an investigation into a complaint made against him. At the same time, DRB-Hicom installed their man Aslam Farikullah as the company’s chief operating officer. The claimed “intense interrogation sessions” were part of the Bahar probe.
It has been a rough start for Lotus’ latest parent, but DRB-Hicom has publicly expressed desire to keep the sportscar maker. It was recently revealed that DRB rejected an offer to take the loss making sportscar maker off its books for £1.
“The easy way out was to accept the offer. As a businessman, that was what I could have done to cut the loss, move on. But looking at the intrinsic value of Lotus, the knowledge, the iconic brand with global presence and positioning, coupled with unsurpassed engineering expertise and a talented workforce, its ability to cross function with Proton…we believe we have a business plan that will work for Lotus,” said DRB-Hicom group managing director Datuk Seri Mohd Khamil Jamil.
“If I sell without trying, at the end of the day, I will fail my shareholders,” he added. Read what DRB’s boss has to say about Lotus here.
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Biasa la orang putih membelanjakan duit syarikat sewenang-wenangnya
the 1 pound, 1 euro fiasco comes back again!! hahahaha…
maybe the case is similar to MV agusta.
the MV Agusta case before, i bet non of you knows what really happened in Varese.
aku ada kat sana dan aku kenal management team yang proton hantar untuk kendalikan MV agusta walaupun aku keje ngn kompani lain.
org kita malaysian pernah kene ugut bunuh mafia kat sana sbb dapat kesan salah laku diarang..perabis duit proton..
malang sbb proton tak dpt nak fully control MV agusta. banyak benda yang proton leh dpt drp kompani tu sebenarnya..
jangan ingat mat saleh tu baik..hahaha
that is the problem… u can’t acquire knowledge directly, we only can acquire it indirectly via hard work, merit, experiment and etc. This means if Proton needs to hire japs to design and engineer proton, why not? Hire the best and you will have results, not hire based on race and religion.
Dr.M’s wants to show the world Malaysia boleh by pouring money into big projects. New Zealand and Singapore are good examples of not having tall buildings, national cars and all those useless ‘world biggest roti canai’ gimmicks.
Tak pernah dengar Italian mafia ke? Jangan campur semua Mat Salleh tak baik. Sama jugak jika satu muslim bunuh, tak boleh cakap semua yang bunuh kan? Atau saya salah?
Orang kita baik. Duit rakyat pun habis tibai. Rasuah x wujud kan di Malaysia?
Mana ada rasuah, pemimpin kita bijak menabung sejak kecil supaya mampu pakai cincin berjuta-juta harganya. Janji dicapati.
Bukan macam pembangkang penipu scammer tu, baru tawan 4 negeri dah naik private jet, salah LGE la tu.
Doesn’t surprised me 1 bit.
The stories that were told by a good friend of mine who is resigning from Proton after more than 5 years with them were all of various forms of intimidations and put downs.
If these are the kind of people DRB-Hicom is putting into the management, Proton & Lotus are going to be in serious troubles in the next 5 years. Then we tax payers are going to bail them out again, if BN is returned to power.
Screw you DRB-Hicom !
agreed.
only if proton never exists…
The mistake was Protons appointing Bahar in the 1st place. Someone who cooks in the palace cannot perform as a cook at a road side stall. Lotus started as an ordinary man’s sport car was was that until Proton tried to lift it into the ranks of Lambo, Maserati’s ect. DRB Hicom shud set Lotus on the right path first. and I think they are doing that.
Tell me how do you save Lotus when the owners need saving themselves? Surely that is the most obvious issue to be addressed first, no?
too bad so much talents and human resources are wasted due to bad office politics..
When malaysians means business (by sacking whoever wasting company money)… ppl condemn… what la you…
you meant DRB HICOM knows how to manage lotus? gimme a break…..even how they are managing proton now is like budak sekolah menengah…..ni lagi nak manage lotus…