In September of this year, Tradeshift, a software technology company based in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, fired CEO Christian Lane after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced. The company was founded in 2005 and Lane is one of the founders. In 2018, Tradeshift became a "unicorn company" with a valuation of US$1.1 billion. In 2021, its valuation soared to $2.7 billion.
On December 14, local time, a newly disclosed lawsuit showed that a woman (pseudonym Jane Doe in the lawsuit documents) sued Tradeshift and Lane. She alleges that just months after she was hired as Lane's executive assistant, Lane forced her to sign a "slave contract," which followed years of sexual abuse, torture and beatings.
Lane
The lawsuit exposes the "slave contract"
There are more than one person
The lawsuit shows that the plaintiff became the executive assistant of Tradeshift CEO Lane in January 2014, and the "slave contract" took effect in April of that year. She claimed that Tradeshift's other founders and board of directors tacitly approved of Lane's "horrible treatment" of her, and named Tradeshift as a defendant. In the lawsuit, Tradeshift is described as having a "toxic and hostile work environment" and alleges that the female assistant was also "sexually assaulted by former Tradeshift board member Morton Lund and entrepreneur Morton Sondergaard." or forced sexual behavior.”
It is said to be a "slave contract" that Lane asked the female assistant to sign. According to the California Superior Court
, the evidence in this case included a ridiculous "slave contract" that stipulated the complete sexual submission of the plaintiff's female assistant. . The contract stipulates that the female assistant agrees to satisfy the sexual needs of the owner (Lane) at any time. When "acting independently", she must always remember that she is the owner's property and she exists to please the owner. The
contract added that every time the female assistant saw the master in private, she was required to kneel down and ask if there was anything she could do for the master. It also stipulated that she could not appear angry, sullen or depressed when receiving punishment, and must express her gratitude to the master afterwards. The contract stipulated that the female assistant was required to keep a diary of her master's "conquest and servitude" and agreed that she would be beaten with a cane if she did not write.
"At some points during Lane's years-long sexual abuse, torture, and assault of female assistants, she attempted to escape the 'master-slave' arrangement outlined in her slave contract, but as she did so, Lane became Angry, even violent." In one incident, Lane attacked her in Davos, Switzerland, the lawsuit adds. The "emotional and psychological stress caused by years of abuse, assault and torture" the plaintiff suffered forced her to seek medical treatment, and she ended up "bedridden and mentally unstable" for nearly two years.
The company fired the CEO after being reported.
The defendant denied all accusations
The plaintiff said that she had complained to the company's human resources department and reported the "slave contract" that she was forced to sign. However, instead of taking steps to protect her, Tradeshift fired her in 2020. In addition, the plaintiff alleges in the lawsuit that after being fired from the company, she continued to maintain contact with other victims who were also sexually abused, tortured and assaulted by Lane. A spokesman for
’s defense team explicitly denied that the relationship was consensual, emphasizing that Lane abused his wealth, status and power to put the accuser into sexual abuse, torture and trafficking.
According to internal letters from Tradeshift, company executives have been informed of "multiple instances of sexual misconduct" by Lane within the company, including allegations of serious sexual assault and harassment. The company received reports from two employees, one of whom provided detailed evidence. The company fired Lane on September 1.
Lane was fired from the company on September 1.
The defendant Lane strongly denied the accusations and stated that the sexual relationship between the two was consensual. The plaintiff was his girlfriend and the relationship existed before she entered the company. , and the worst thing he did "was hire someone I was dating." Lane claimed that his sexual relationship with the female assistant ended eight months after hiring her and that she had worked at Tradeshift for about five years.
He said that the female assistant was laid off based on the company's business needs. She was eliminated in several rounds of layoffs and had nothing to do with him. The female assistant never made a formal or other complaint to Tradeshift’s board of directors or the company’s human resources department. After he was fired from the company, he said the company had "never received an HR case, complaint or formal accusation against him."
The other two defendants, Sondergaard and Lund, also denied the accusations made against them by the plaintiff, calling them "baseless." Sondergaard accused the accuser of casting aspersions on their relationship, stressing that she was just one of the tenants at his London townhouse.
Red Star News reporter Deng Shuyi
Editor Zhang Li Editor-in-Chief Wei Kongming
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