Match Group, Former Employees Spar Over Handling of Sexual-Assault

When Greg Blatt announced his plan to resign as Match Group Inc. chief executive in 2017, the dating-app conglomerate presented the transition as orderly and planned well in advance.

Privately, executives at the companyMatch Group and its then-controlling shareholder, IAC/InterActive Corp., expressed concerns that a sexual-assault allegation against the CEO might become public and discussed how long to say the transition had been in the works, according to documents filed this week in a lawsuit the companies have been battling in New York state court. Executives also deliberated over having Mr. Blatt address the allegation, a draft resignation letter Mr. Blatt sent to independent public-relations representatives showed.

“We need to get specific on the date of when the Board adopted a CEO transition plan, and it needs to pre-date the incident for the story to be credible should all of this come to light,” said IAC communications chief Valerie Combs in a July 6, 2017, email to IAC Chief Executive Joey Levin, according to the filing.

Three weeks after the exchange, a press release announcing Mr. Blatt’s resignation as CEO of both Match Group and dating app Tinder didn’t mention the allegation or an investigation that Match Group conducted. IAC Chairman Barry Diller said in the press release that Mr. Blatt had approached him nearly a year earlier about a potential job change and that the CEO’s departure came after months of discussion and planning.

It took months for bosses and employees to adjust to working remotely in the pandemic. The next era of work might be even more messy.

Companies are laying down new rules and setting expectations for hybrid workand others remain out of office. At JPMorgan Chase & Co., employees on some teams can schedule work-from-home days, but not on Mondays or Fridays. At Salesforce.com Inc. offices that have reopened, Thursdays are proving to be the most popular in-office day, creating high demand for meeting rooms and collaboration spaces, and prompting the company to rethink its office design.

Executives at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP have voiced worries that workers who stay remote could wind up as second-class corporate citizens, falling behindAfter months of discussions, big employers from Humana Inc. in Louisville, Ky., to Nike Inc. near Portland, Ore., say they are cementing plans to return to corporate complexes after Labor Day—in some cases relaxing capacity restrictions
Corp. €80 million, equivalent to $97.2 million, to settle a damages claim relating to previously announced allegations that it violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

In 2019, Ericsson
Ericsson said the settlement amount announced Wednesday reflects “uncertainty, risk, expense, and potential distraction from business focus associated with a potentially lengthy and complex litigation.”

A Nokia spokesman said Ericsson’s statement about the settlement was accurate. “We have no further comment,” he said.

The settlement will hit Ericsson’s second-quarter earnings before interest and tax by €80 million and cash flow by €26 million, Ericsson said.

AG agreed to pay about $80 million to resolve a criminal charge stemming from a U.S. investigation into bribery involving the world soccer federation FIFA.

A subsidiary of the Swiss bank entered into an agreement with prosecutors to defer a money-laundering conspiracy charge during a virtual hearing before a federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday. Prosecutors have agreed to dismiss the charge if Julius Baer abides by the terms of the deal for a three-year period.

The charge stems from a scheme that prosecutors said took place between about February 2013 and May 2015 in which sports marketing companies
Christoph Hiestand, Julius Baer’s general counsel, appeared before Judge Chen to confirm that the bank’s board had approved the deferred-prosecution agreement. He said the bank had agreed to strengthen its compliance program as part of the deal.

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Julius Baer in a statement on Thursday welcomed the settlement. “This marks another step in Julius Baer’s continued efforts to pursue the closure of remaining regulatory and legalInc. quietly built a multilayered compliance team last year to formalize its risk and ethics functions under one leader as the company became a household name during the global pandemic.

The San Jose, Calif.-based videoconferencing company hired its first chief compliance officer in January 2020 and built a new compliance team with the addition of 50 more lawyers and compliance professionals, Lynn Haaland, Zoom’s deputy general counsel and chief compliance and ethics officer, said Wednesday at the WSJ Risk & Compliance Forum.

“There really hasn’t been for me a ‘pre-pandemic’ or ‘normal’ time at Zoom,” said Ms. Haaland, who is also Zoom’s chief privacy officer.

Zoom, which went public in 2019, has been one of the biggest corporate beneficiaries from the shift to remote work and distance schooling. The company, which made its name in part by giving its services away free to many users during the pandemic, also saw the number of paying users skyrocket as large businesses and others tried to connect with employees and