Two ex-Pac-12 Network executives filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the network. Reports emerged on Friday that former network CFO Brent Willman and former network President Mark Shuman filed the lawsuit in a San Francisco Superior Court this past week.
“After an audit showed that Comcast and the Pac-12 Network mistakenly overpaid the Pac-12 by about $5 million annually for several years, the Pac-12 fired the network’s President and the conference CFO in order to deflect blame and avoid scrutiny over the mistake, according to a lawsuit filed by the two men who were fired,” the San Francisco Chronicle wrote.
Shuken and Willman, the two former network executives, alleged that “the reason they were fired in January of this year was for failing to disclose audit results in 2017 which exposed the overpayment,” the Chronicle reported. The Chronicle also reported that the two men are suing for breach of contract, defamation, and for unlawful termination.
The lawsuit also involves former Pac-12 commissioner, Larry Scott. It alleges that Scott “withheld” the information that Shuken and Willman allege to have brought forward. In particular, they showed the gross overpayment back in 2016, according to the lawsuit. However, Scott “withheld this information from the Pac-12 board of directors, and denied the findings of the audit results.” The overpayments date back to 2012.
Shuken and Willman claimed “their contracts specified that they report only to the commissioner,” the report said. They said they requested the conference remove the accusations, which they claim were defaming, but that the conference hasn’t obliged.
