Lawsuit claims $11 billion unicorn lured Bay Area exec from Salesforce with ‘sham’ promise
Shawn O’Connell claims he only left his lucrative job at Bay Area software titan Salesforce because multi-billion-dollar software firm Celonis offered him a valuable stock grant. That offer, he alleged in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed this week, was vaporware: It came from an employee stock program that did not exist.
“Celonis’ conduct,” the suit filed in San Francisco County Superior Court claimed, “was deceptive, fraudulent, and intentionally designed to lure Mr. O’Connell away from Salesforce with a promise of equity that Celonis had no intention of honoring.”
Germany-headquartered Celonis, which makes business software and has a San Francisco office, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The job offer Celonis presented to O’Connell in 2018 contained a promised salary of $200,000, which was nothing close to what he was making in sales at Salesforce, according to the suit. But Celonis, a private company valued in June at $11 billion, also offered him restricted stock units redeemable for shares in company stock once certain conditions were met, the offer letter filed as an exhibit in the case shows.
For more than two years, O’Connell tried and failed to get his hands on the stock agreement referenced in the offer letter, the suit claimed. “Celonis never answered his questions or provided him with documents responsive to his requests,” the suit alleged. O’Connell found it “deeply troubling” when the company’s head of human resources for North America told him last year she did not know about any restricted-stock program, the suit claimed.
“From early 2019 to present, Celonis has never responded to Mr. O’Connell’s requests for the 2018 stock agreement referenced in his Offer Letter, or any other foundational documents required under federal laws,” the suit filed Monday alleged. “Celonis’ ’employee equity program’ was a sham – intentionally designed to lure talented employees away from their jobs, so Celonis could benefit from the fruits of their labor without any intention of honoring the promises of equity.”
O’Connell, of Danville, claimed Celonis used a misreading of the offer letter to tell him he was entitled to only 300 stock units, rather than the 3,000 he was supposed to receive.
He was fired in July over the stock dispute and other purported problems at the company that he reported to management, the suit alleged. In a news release Wednesday, his law firm, Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy of Burlingame, pegged his purported loss from the stock dispute at $20 million, based on the shares to which he was allegedly entitled. The law firm claimed Celonis’ board never voted on or approved the stock plan.
O’Connell is seeking equity in Celonis, along with unspecified damages and restitution.