Lynch at Large

Here is a juicy little tidbit that showed up among the comments on the Arkansas Times Blog. It was so good, I stole it.

Remember the director of marketing that got shown the door a few months ago? Well There have been consequences. Ad Age has the story.

Julie Roehm, the former Wal-Mart marketing executive whose December ouster caused a media firestorm, has filed a lawsuit against the retailer, claiming Wal-Mart breached her contract and smeared her in the press.

At the center of the lawsuit is Ms. Roehm's allegation that Wal-Mart hasn't lived up to its end of the compensation deal she agreed to when she joined the company a year ago. That agreement, according to the documents, included base pay of $325,000, a signing bonus of $250,000, annual incentive-based payments and restricted stock worth up to $300,000. The lawsuit was filed without fanfare last month in state court in Michigan, where the former Chrysler executive keeps a residence, but it was transferred to federal court.

The dismissals of Ms. Roehm, senior VP-marketing communications, and Sean Womack, VP-communications architecture, caused a scandal that ended up dominating the ad industry's imagination for weeks and landed the saga on the front pages of Advertising Age and The Wall Street Journal. At that time, executives close to the company said the reasons for the dismissals had to do with ethical missteps during an ad account review that Ms. Roehm managed, as well as an "inappropriate relationship" between the two executives. Both executives have publicly denied those accusations.