There were a series of accusations about our company last August from a former employee. Immediately following these accusations, LMG hired Roper Greyell - a large Vancouver-based law firm specializing in labor and employment law, to conduct a third-party investigation. Their website describes them as “one of the largest employment and labour law firms in Western Canada.” They work with both private and public sector employers.

To ensure a fair investigation, LMG did not comment or publicly release any data and asked our team members to do the same. Now that the investigation is complete, we’re able to provide a summary of the findings.

The investigation found that:

  • Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.

  • Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.

  • Any concerns that were raised were investigated. Furthermore, from reviewing our history, the investigator is confident that if any other concerns had been raised, we would have investigated them.

  • There was no evidence of “abuse of power” or retaliation. The individual involved may not have agreed with our decisions or performance feedback, but our actions were for legitimate work-related purposes, and our business reasons were valid.

  • Allegations of process errors and miscommunication while onboarding this individual were partially substantiated, but the investigator found ample documentary evidence of LMG working to rectify the errors and the individual being treated generously and respectfully. When they had questions, they were responded to and addressed.

In summary, as confirmed by the investigation, the allegations made against the team were largely unfounded, misleading, and unfair.

With all of that said, in the spirit of ongoing improvement, the investigator shared their general recommendation that fast-growing workplaces should invest in continuing professional development. The investigator encouraged us to provide further training to our team about how to raise concerns to reinforce our existing workplace policies.

Prior to receiving this report, LMG solicited anonymous feedback from the team in an effort to ensure there was no unreported bullying and harassment and hosted a training session which reiterated our workplace policies and reinforced our reporting structure. LMG will continue to assess ongoing continuing education for our team.

At this time, we feel our case for a defamation suit would be very strong; however, our deepest wish is to simply put all of this behind us. We hope that will be the case, given the investigator’s clear findings that the allegations made online were misrepresentations of what actually occurred. We will continue to assess if there is persistent reputational damage or further defamation.

This doesn’t mean our company is perfect and our journey is over. We are continuously learning and trying to do better. Thank you all for being part of our community.

  • SkaveRat
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    24 days ago

    The defamation statement was maybe a bit much, but also warranted. People need to know that just throwing accusations out there that are just plainly not true is actually legally problematic.

    I also don’t get why people feel this is “threatening people who want to speak up in the future”.

    If your “speaking up” has merit, it’s not defarmation. Plain and simple.

    Companies make mistakes (and aparently some were made in this case, and dealt with).

    But I find it concerning that people also just blindly trust any and all claims that individuals make about these kind of situations. Believe that they are telling the truth, but also verify that this is actually true. The latter part is important. Blind trust is as damaging as not doing anything at all about a proble, There are people out there who get laid off for legitimate reasons, and try to retaliate for that. Even by claiming BS reasons.

    • dustyData@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      I wish you never have to find yourself facing a corporation. The power imbalance is so massive that you feel like an ant, it’s the most disempowering experience anyone could face in legal terms. LTT could destroy people’s lives and it would be decades if ever, for them to ever have to face consequences.

      This is why I always default to believing the individual over the corporation. The corporation has no soul, no heart, no conscience and no remorse. Imagine being a person who wants to speak up about something else you know for certain happened, but a million dollar law firm just put in writing that such kind of thing didn’t happen. You have no recourse or power, it’s your word against a literal army of lawyers. Regardless of whether the investigation was good or not. The result still has a silencing effect.