Forced Resignation, and Dispute Over Apartment
Messier was forced to resign from his position with Vivendi in July 2002, after the company posted a non-cash loss of 13.6 billion euro ($US 11.8 billion) during 2001. During his time as CEO of Vivendi, Messier used corporate funds to buy a $17.5 million apartment for his personal use at 515 Park Avenue at 60th Street in New York City, the swank Arthur Zeckendorf development that was home to luminaries such as Senator Jon Corzine. After he was fired, Messier tried to claim the apartment as part of his severance package, but was rebuffed. Messier then relocated to New York City to work as a business consultant.
Read more about this topic: Jean-Marie Messier
Famous quotes containing the words forced, dispute and/or apartment:
“It must be a peace without victory.... Victory would mean peace forced upon the losers, a victor’s terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which the terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“As for the dispute about solitude and society, any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plane at the base of a mountain, instead of climbing steadily to its top.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)