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The axed co-founder of a San Francisco tech firm has been named in a bombshell lawsuit.
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The swimsuit accuses ex-Tradeshift CEO Christian Lanng of forcing his assistant to signal a “slave contract.”
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Lanng vehemently denied the accusations within the lawsuit in an announcement to Enterprise Insider.
The axed CEO and co-founder of a San Francisco-based tech firm has been accused in a bombshell lawsuit of forcing his former govt assistant to signal a “slave contract” and subjecting her to a number of years of “sexual abuse, torture and assault.”
The plaintiff, solely recognized as “Jane Doe” within the swimsuit filed final week in a California court docket, says within the court docket paperwork that former Tradeshift CEO Christian Lanng sexually trafficked her world wide below the guise of enterprise journeys for the fintech firm.
The lawsuit alleges that Lanng made the lady signal the “surprising and repulsive” intercourse “slave contract” that named him as “grasp” a number of months into her employment at Tradeshift, inflicting her work and private life to spiral into “a darkish abyss of undesirable sexual horror.”
The abuse she endured, the lawsuit says, included the lady “being certain towards her will and overwhelmed to the purpose of bleeding.”
The plaintiff claims within the swimsuit that she was fired in Could 2020 after she complained to the corporate’s human assets division, its co-founders and members of its board of administrators “in regards to the rape, sexual abuse, torture and assault she was struggling by the hands” of Laang below the “slave contract.
Lanng — who was fired by Tradeshift this previous September for what the corporate known as “gross misconduct on a number of grounds” that included “allegations of sexual assault and harassment” — vehemently denied the accusations within the lawsuit towards him in a prolonged assertion to Enterprise Insider.
In reality, Lanng, who didn’t dispute the existence of the “slave contract,” claimed that he and his accuser had been in a “consensual sexual relationship” earlier than he employed her at Tradeshift.
Lanng stated their relationship ended eight months after she joined the corporate. Enterprise Insider obtained a screenshot of an electronic mail trade between Lanng and the plaintiff, which exhibits Lanng sharing a Google Doc entitled “Slave Contract” together with his assistant in April 2014 — about 4 months after her legal professionals say she was employed on the firm.
“The surprising and vile claims within the lawsuit are categorically false, and I reject allegations that I subjected somebody to any type of abuse throughout my tenure as CEO or at some other time of my life,” Lanng stated within the assertion, calling his resolution to rent somebody he was relationship a “grave error of judgment.”
The previous Tradeshift CEO stated that his accuser labored on the firm for 5 extra years after their relationship ended and that her place was later eradicated in a spherical of layoffs. He known as her accusations “a cynical and callous affront to victims of sexual violence and human trafficking.”
The plaintiff’s attorneys, Bryan Freedman and Miles Cooley, blasted Lanng’s feedback in an announcement to Enterprise Insider, saying, “In what world is a slave contract between a CEO and his worker remotely consensual? That Lanng is misrepresenting timelines and period of the abuse to excuse his conduct is actually reprehensible.”
“Our consumer fully rejects the notion that she had a ‘consensual’ slave relationship along with her boss,” the legal professionals stated. “As if the allegations should not horrific sufficient, the company coverup and malfeasance as alleged within the criticism takes this tragedy to a different sick stage. We look ahead to setting forth all of the information in the middle of discovery and litigation.”
The attorneys informed Enterprise Insider that their consumer began her employment at Tradeshift in January 2014 and that the “slave contract” started in April of that 12 months.
The plaintiff says within the lawsuit, which additionally names Tradeshift as a defendant, that Lanng’s “horrific therapy” of her was “recognized by and tacitly accredited of by Tradeshift’s” different founders and board of administrators.
The lawsuit, which describes Tradeshift as a “poisonous, hostile work surroundings,” alleges that the plaintiff was additionally sexually abused by former Tradeshift board members Morten Lund and Morten Sondergaard.
Lund and Sondergaard didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark by Enterprise Insider on Wednesday.
A Tradeshift spokesperson informed Enterprise Insider that the corporate “denies the allegations within the declare insofar as they’re made towards the corporate.”
In Lanng’s assertion, he stated, “As a co-founder and CEO of Tradeshift for greater than a decade, I need to be very clear: Tradeshift by no means condoned or hid sexual harassment claims.”
In the meantime, the lawsuit alleges that the plaintiff has undergone “bodily, psychological and emotional trauma and hurt” on account of the intercourse abuse she endured.
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