Consultancy sues rival for alleged smear marketing campaign on Glassdoor
The consulting firm Secretariat has filed a defamation suit against rival HKA in the US judicial system. Among the allegations, the complaint alleges that the UK-based defendant posted a fabricated review of the secretariat on Glassdoor.
In the midst of the crowded consulting market, the differentiators between competitors can make a critical difference in attracting the right talent. As a result, employment platforms like Glassdoor can provide an important way for companies to recruit new employees in a tight job market. On this website, job seekers can see how a company’s employees rate this. They can also determine which companies to avoid. According to the advisory secretariat, rival HKA has now posted fake postings on Glassdoor to make its competitor look bad.
HKA is a UK based dispute prevention and resolution company providing advisory, advisory and expert services in the construction and engineering industries. It is represented in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. Likewise, the Secretariat is a leading expert specializing in construction delays, construction damage, government contracts, economic damage and forensic investigations.
According to a lawsuit filed in California, the Secretariat is suing HKA and its Chief Business Development Officer and Head of Europe for defamation, unfair competition and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, among other things. The complaint alleges that a member of HKA’s Global Executive Committee committed a number of criminal offenses by creating a false profile on the employee reviews website, Glassdoor, posing as a secretariat employee and extremely harmful Made comments on the secretariat.
The fake Glassdoor review was released in July 2020 and is believed to have come from a secretariat employee in the Secretariat’s London office who had worked for the company for three to five years. The alleged authorities said the secretariat was concerned about the “ethics” and “greed” of his employer and the secretariat’s reputation in the industry with clients and lawyers had deteriorated as a result of a recent court case against the secretariat. The post also noted that this fictitious secretariat employee had given the secretariat director general a “disapproving” rating.
Joseph M. Terry of Williams & Connolly, the Secretariat’s attorney said, “The Secretariat filed a complaint today detailing how Toby Hunt used fraudulent and defamatory behavior against my client on HKA’s behalf destroy his reputation. sabotage his business and disrupt his future business relationships. We want to prove that this was done with the aim of damaging the secretariat and improving HKA’s own competitive position, as the company’s parent company, Bridgepoint Advisers, was ready to sell HKA. ”
The Secretariat’s complaint also alleges that the Glassdoor screening swab was part of an ongoing effort by Hunt and HKA to damage the Secretariat’s reputation. The secretariat claims Hunt and other HKA employees used public social media posts to raise concerns about the company’s integrity and ethics among the secretariat’s employees and customers, and then attempted to exploit those concerns to the employees to lure the secretariat to HKA.
Terry added, “As the complaint alleges, the smear campaign directed by Toby Hunt is full of hypocrisy: Hunt’s defamatory and fraudulent behavior shows the greed and lack of ethics he has accused our client of. Hunt remains shockingly listed as an active member of the Global Executive Committee and senior HKA officer. “
