A former ManpowerGroup executive who says he was terminated after the company fell victim to an email wire transfer scheme is suing the Milwaukee-based firm, alleging he was denied his full severance package.
Sheldon Schur, who spent more than a decade working for Manpower, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Wisconsin on Monday. Schur, an Illinois resident, alleges he was fired without cause and he was entitled to any unpaid salary, benefits and annual incentive compensation, along with the pro rata accrual of a $200,000 retention incentive and a $250,000 severance payment.
Instead, Schur’s complaint says he was paid a 60-day base salary continuation, COBRA benefits and three months of outplacement services.
Schur is seeking a judgment requiring the company to make additional severance payments, although the specific amount would be determined at trial.
A Manpower spokeswoman said the company does not comment on pending litigation. Schur’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the case.
According to the complaint, Schur joined Manpower in 2006 after serving as senior vice president of Comsys IT Partners Inc. The complaint says he was “an instrumental leader” in Manpower’s 2010 acquisition of Comsys.
In 2011, Schur was promoted to vice president and general manager of Experis North America, a Manpower subsidiary and in 2013 he was again promoted to vice president and general manager for global sales.
In the new position, Schur “led and developed complex, multi-country solutions for ManpowerGroup clients and personally ‘landed’ two multinational corporations who provided substantial revenue to ManpowerGroup,” the complaint says.
In late November, hackers allegedly gained access to the email account of a top leader on one of Schur’s teams responsible for a major corporate client. The hacker allegedly sent a number of wire transfer requests to ManpowerGroup employees between Nov. 30 and Dec. 14. The requests appeared to be routine payments to vendors and were approved, even though the money was actually transferred to the hackers’ bank accounts, according to the complaint.
Schur received a request to transfer nearly $3 million on Dec. 19 and denied the request given its size. After he denied the request, ManpowerGroup began investigating the transfers. The complaint says Schur cooperated in the investigation and he thought the matter was resolved by mid-January.
The complaint says in early March Manpower senior vice president of global sales John Williams asked to meet with Schur to discuss forward-looking sales plans. The two allegedly had a two-hour meeting on March 8.
“Only after Mr. Williams deceptively extracted from Mr. Schur all of Mr. Schur’s strategies, information and insight, Mr. Williams wrongfully terminated Mr. Schur’s employment with ManpowerGroup,” the complaint says.
