Leslie Moonves, who led CBS as chief executive for 15 years before being fired in 2018, will not receive any of the $ 120 million the company has earmarked in a potential severance package, according to a federal filing filed Friday.
Mr. Moonves left CBS on September 9, 2018 after more than a dozen women accused him of sexual misconduct, allegations that surfaced in two articles in The New Yorker by Ronan Farrow. Mr Moonves has denied the allegations.
In October of this year, the board of directors of CBS Corporation placed $ 120 million in a grantor trust as part of a separation agreement. That money would go to Mr. Moonves if the company found there was no reason to fire him under his contract.
In December 2018, the board of directors stated that it had determined that Mr. Moonves had actually been dismissed for an important reason, and referred in a statement at the time to “willful and material misconduct, violation of company guidelines and violation of his employment contract”. Mr. Moonves denied this finding and initiated arbitration proceedings in January 2019 regarding the possible exit package.
On Friday, the matter came to a resolution almost three years after it began, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “The assets of the Grantor Trust will be returned in full to the company,” it said.
The submission was made by ViacomCBS. Mr. Moonves’ former employer merged in December 2019 after lengthy negotiations with a sibling company, Viacom. Mr. Moonves firmly opposed the merger plan when he was at the helm of CBS.
“The dispute between Mr. Moonves and CBS is now resolved,” Viacom told CBS in a statement on Friday. It added that the company and Mr. Moonves would not make any further comments on the matter.
Mr. Moonves, 71, was one of the most famous characters to be overthrown by the #MeToo movement. Other powerful men in the media and entertainment business whose careers came to an end after allegations of sexual misconduct included Fox News executive Roger E. Ailes and film mogul Harvey Weinstein. Mr Ailes died in 2017 months after leaving the network he helped create, and Mr Weinstein fell from power in 2017 and was sentenced to 23 years in prison last year for sex crimes against six women.
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