Latest / The Front / Slater + Gordon’s ‘fake email’ nightmare

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Slater + Gordon’s ‘fake email’ nightmare · The Front

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, February twenty six. The Teal candidates are confident
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  Speaker 1: they'll hold and maybe even grow their numbers at the
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  Speaker 1: looming federal election, with polling commissioned by Climate two hundred,
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  Speaker 1: for the Liberals to win back blue ribbon inner city
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  Speaker 1: seats they lost in twenty twenty two. That's an exclusive
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  Speaker 1: live now at the Australian dot com dot au. Please
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: vote for the major parties. That's the plea from one
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  Speaker 1: of the nation's major oil producers, Beach Energy Chief executive
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  Speaker 1: Brett Woods says, even if you hate Labor or the Coalition,
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  Speaker 1: a minority government would be a disaster for the country.
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  Speaker 1: It's the scandal that has ever every lawyer in Australia
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  Speaker 1: talking an apparently fake email from a senior executive, smashing
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  Speaker 1: up colleagues reputations and disclosing salary and performance details. Class
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  Speaker 1: action law firms Slater and Gordon have called in the
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  Speaker 1: police and are now trying to calm a furious workforce. Today.
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  Speaker 1: How the so called ambulance chasers found themselves at the
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  Speaker 1: bottom of a cliff. Where to from here? The world
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  Speaker 1: is cold and bleak. In law firms Slater in Gordon's
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  Speaker 1: latest suite of ads, Unfortunately something's gone wrong institutions, businesses, hospitals,
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  Speaker 1: the system let ordinary people down. A slip at the supermarket,
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  Speaker 1: a fall at work, a medical mistake.
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  Speaker 2: The world can feel like a lonely place.
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  Speaker 1: Everything seems hopeless.
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  Speaker 2: Slater and Gordon can help you make a claim through
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  Speaker 2: your super.
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  Speaker 1: And then the sun comes out along with the Slater
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  Speaker 1: and Gordon app and some uplifting music. Are you really
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  Speaker 1: getting what's fair, not just what's off it? Talk to
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  Speaker 1: Slater and Gordon and we'll take it from here. In
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  Speaker 1: Slater and Gordon's own in house promo video, the firm
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  Speaker 1: proudly sets out its history from representing railway union workers
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties to revolutionizing the legal system in
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties. More than just knowing the law, we've
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  Speaker 1: helped change it, providing better outcomes for asbestos and deadly
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  Speaker 1: silica dust workers and those employed in the growing gig economy.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety four, when a young future Prime Minister
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  Speaker 1: Julia Gillard worked there, Slater and Gordon introduced a revolutionary concept,
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  Speaker 1: no win, no fee. That's the idea behind those ads.
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  Speaker 1: Before this concept, you could only sue for personal injury
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: or workers compo if you had enough money to pay
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  Speaker 1: a lawyer. Slater and Gordon's idea was if they didn't win,
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  Speaker 1: they wouldn't charge the client at all, and they raked
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  Speaker 1: in the cash because for many employers, whether they be
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  Speaker 1: small businesses, giant corporations, or government, it's much cheaper to
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  Speaker 1: settle a legal claim out of court rather than fight it,
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  Speaker 1: and the fees could be hefty, up to twenty five
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  Speaker 1: percent of a client's payout. Slater and Gordon took it
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  Speaker 1: a step further with class actions, where they'd go looking
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  Speaker 1: for plaintiffs to take action against wealthy corporations. They took
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  Speaker 1: on big tobacco companies, mining giants, federal and state governments,
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  Speaker 1: delivering life changing payouts for individuals like those who'd suffered
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: asbestos related diseases at the hands of manufacturer James Hardy.
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  Speaker 2: Slater and Gordon have been referred to as ambulance chases,
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  Speaker 2: people who go after claims and chase those claims incredibly
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  Speaker 2: hard for their client.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Ellie Dudley is The Australian's Legal affairs correspondent.
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  Speaker 2: But they would say that they're all about clients first, right,
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  Speaker 2: They're all about the little guy, those who have been
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  Speaker 2: wronged by their employer or by a large corporation. And
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  Speaker 2: they've had some huge wins when it comes to class
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  Speaker 2: actions in Australia, things like Manus Island. They're the firm
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  Speaker 2: that's going after Optus after their data breach, so they
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  Speaker 2: have had some huge wins and they've got quite a
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  Speaker 2: good reputation for chasing you know, big workplace or labor
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  Speaker 2: or class action claims.
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  Speaker 1: And we're here to talk about the h R nightmare
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  Speaker 1: engulfing Slater in Gordon.
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  Speaker 2: It is insanely GC.
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  Speaker 1: Last Friday morning, Slater and Gordon's staff. We're settling in
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  Speaker 1: for another day of chasing down bad bosses and standing
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  Speaker 1: up for the little guy, when an email popped into
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  Speaker 1: hundreds of inboxes.
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  Speaker 3: To be blunt, the situation at Slater and Gordon is
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  Speaker 3: a text bookcase of dysfunction.
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  Speaker 1: We've used a voice actor to read you the email.
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  Speaker 1: The email purported to be from Slater and Gordon's Chief
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  Speaker 1: people officer, that is the head of human Resources, Mari
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  Speaker 1: Ruiz mathieson handing over to the person who was taking
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  Speaker 1: over her job, and it seemed to be referring to
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  Speaker 1: chief executive Dina.
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  Speaker 3: To Tungi, Dina's primary focus is her own bottom line.
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  Speaker 3: She's determined to maximize her bonus and is laser focused
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  Speaker 3: on keeping salaries locked down. She openly admitted her grand
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  Speaker 3: plan is to cash out and retire with millions in
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  Speaker 3: a few years.
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  Speaker 1: The email accused the firm's owner's private equity fund allegro
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  Speaker 1: of ruining, its culture heads are rolling, and what remains
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  Speaker 1: is a skeletal crew barely keeping things together.
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  Speaker 3: The endgame a polished up shell to be sold off
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  Speaker 3: at the right price. Grim but predictable.
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  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just a Tungi who copped it pasting.
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  Speaker 1: Senior figures at the firm were described as.
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  Speaker 3: Ruthlessly ambitious, lazy and unm motivated, senile and needs to retire.
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  Speaker 3: Morale is abysmal, money is hemorrhaging. Best of luck, you'll
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  Speaker 3: need it.
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  Speaker 2: My jaw hit the ground. It was the most shocking
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  Speaker 2: internal email I think I have ever read. And then,
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  Speaker 2: on top of that, after all of these criticisms, she
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  Speaker 2: then attaches or the author then attached a spreadsheet containing
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  Speaker 2: the salary, performance rating, and bonus information of nine hundred
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  Speaker 2: and six Slater and Gordon employees. Now that email was
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  Speaker 2: blind copied to a wide range of Slater and Gordon employees.
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  Speaker 2: So can you just imagine sitting at your desk at work,
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  Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you get this email from
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  Speaker 2: your colleague calling out every single person at the organization
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  Speaker 2: divulging this incredibly private information. Plus you can not only
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  Speaker 2: see your own salary in this spreadsheet, but the salary
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  Speaker 2: of the people sitting either side of you. So it's
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  Speaker 2: really really shaken this firm.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine Maria action would be between complete
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  Speaker 1: glee that something so excruciating was happening in public, and
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  Speaker 1: then rage if my own salary was revealed and finding
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  Speaker 1: out what, you know, my hopeless colleague.
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  Speaker 2: Totally I would be going and I'd been knocking on
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  Speaker 2: my boss's door and saying, Hey, why is old mate
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  Speaker 2: being paid X? And I'm being paid why? I think
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  Speaker 2: it's time for a little bit of a pain negotiation,
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  Speaker 2: which is just the world of pain that Slater and
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  Speaker 2: Gordon finds themselves in. Now.
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  Speaker 1: Now, probably the least likely person to have actually sent
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  Speaker 1: this email is Mari Ruiz Mathison, right, she's denying it totally.
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  Speaker 2: So this email hit inboxes on Friday morning. By Friday afternoon,
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  Speaker 2: Slater and Gordon had issued a statement saying that it
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: was a hoax and saying that somebody who was not
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Marie Ruiz Matheson had sent the email, and saying both
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: the firm and miss Ruiz Matheson intended to report the
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  Speaker 2: matter to police because a serious breach had been conducted.
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  Speaker 2: So since then, Marie Ruiz Matheson has also come out
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  Speaker 2: with her own statement via her lawyers, strenuously denying that
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  Speaker 2: she sent it, saying that her and her family are
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: deeply distressed, and saying that they're planning on taking legal
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: action at some point. We don't know what that legal
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  Speaker 2: action looks like yet, but she is planning on taking
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: legal action, and she has lawyered up. So she has
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: said that it's absolutely not her. And that's what it
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  Speaker 2: makes sense, right, because somebody that senior to blow themselves
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  Speaker 2: up like that before leaving an organization, that's you done,
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  Speaker 2: that's your reputation absolutely in tatters. But it does lead
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: to an incredibly interesting discussion point, which is, well, if
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  Speaker 2: it wasn't her, then who did send it? The email
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  Speaker 2: included incredibly high level information about all these different employees,
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  Speaker 2: about Dina Tutungi, the chief executive, and with all of
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  Speaker 2: this personal payroll information, so it must have been somebody
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  Speaker 2: who had access to all that information. On top of that,
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  Speaker 2: it included a lot of personal details about Mari Ruiz Matheson,
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  Speaker 2: including you know, the names of her dogs. The email
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  Speaker 2: was signed off, I'm going to spend time with my ups,
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  Speaker 2: Ruby and Pearl, things like that, which is incredibly sinister
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  Speaker 2: when you think about it. So it's left a big
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  Speaker 2: mystery over this entire saga, which you know, as you
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  Speaker 2: can imagine, the rumor Millets later in Gordon is just
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  Speaker 2: churning out all kinds of theories about who sent this email.
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  Speaker 1: So the spreadsheet that was attached with performance ratings and
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  Speaker 1: income level salary packages, do we know if that information
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  Speaker 1: was accurate?
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  Speaker 2: Slater and Gordon have said that a lot of the
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  Speaker 2: information included in this email was quite a work of fiction.
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  Speaker 1: They would say that.
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  Speaker 2: They would say that, and we know that the spreadsheet
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  Speaker 2: included salary information for people who haven't worked at the
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  Speaker 2: firm for a long time. So while Slater and Gordon
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  Speaker 2: can say that that salary information is disputed and is
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: not accurate, it might just mean that it's outdated. But
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  Speaker 2: they definitely say that it's not one hundred percent accurate.
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  Speaker 2: But we know that Slater and Gordon employees have looked
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  Speaker 2: at the information and have said, no, that's my salary,
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  Speaker 2: So it's got to be accurate to some extent.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up house later in Gordon is trying to pacify
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  Speaker 1: the troops. So for employees of Slater in Gordon, I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure some of whom speak to you, what do they
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  Speaker 1: do now?
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  Speaker 2: Gosh? I think it depends on who you talk to.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Slater and Gordon is in absolute crisis mode at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: They've set up an HR process specifically for pay negotiations.
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  Speaker 2: So anybody who feels like they're not earning enough because
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: they've seen what their colleagues are earning, there's a special
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: HR process that is coming shortly. They're holding emergency staff meetings.
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  Speaker 2: As we know, Slater and Gordon is incredibly focused on
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  Speaker 2: their reputation and so they've been very quick to say
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  Speaker 2: that no client data has been breached as part of
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  Speaker 2: this so look, it's just crisis mode at the moment,
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  Speaker 2: and if you're an employee it's later in Gordon, you're
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  Speaker 2: probably feeling incredibly distressed, incredibly angry, but also probably you know,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of chatter going on and engaging in
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  Speaker 2: that too.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, Ellie, Now famously journalists don't get paid very much,
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  Speaker 1: but what was your take on seeing those salary numbers?
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  Speaker 1: What sort of money we're talking about?
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  Speaker 2: So, Dina Tutungi, according to this disputed spreadsheet, is earning
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  Speaker 2: six hundred and ninety thousand dollars, which is a lot
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  Speaker 2: of money.
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  Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong.
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  Speaker 2: I can promise you I'm not earning anywhere near six
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  Speaker 2: hundred and ninety thousand dollars. But when it comes to
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: the CEO of quite a large law firm, it's.
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  Speaker 1: Probably not that much money.
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  Speaker 2: But it ranged from that down to the lowest paid
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: was a legal assistant on twenty two thousand dollars. Now
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: that's surely hopefully somebody who's just you know, working one
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  Speaker 2: day a week or something like that. But that was
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: broadly the range of salaries that was in there. The
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: rest of it sort of checked out, you know, lawyers
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  Speaker 2: on one hundred and fifty thousand dollars that sort of stuff,
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  Speaker 2: some ranging up to the four hundred thousand dollar mark.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: But yeah, what's later in Gordon's reputation within the legal
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: sector as a place to work, so.
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  Speaker 2: Broadly, it's been known as a place that you want
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: to work if you want to work in the class
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  Speaker 2: action sector. That being said, though, they have been embroiled
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: in a few scandals over the past year or so.
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  Speaker 2: At one point it hit the media that there was
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: a huge underpayment scandal that they were underpaying employees over
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: a period of twelve years. I think the money that
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: at totaled too was three hundred thousand dollars in underpayments.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: As a result of that scandal, the former head of
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: HR has also sued the company in the federal court,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: which is still an ongoing legal battle that's between Alicia
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Gleeson and Slater in Gordon. So they do appear to
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: be the seeds of scandal that are coming out of
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Slater in Gordon. And then all of a sudden, this
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  Speaker 2: email leak comes through and now it's a firm in crisis.
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  Speaker 1: This is a nightmare for any boss to deal with.
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  Speaker 1: Dinner to Tonguey's probably processing the quite stark criticism of
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: her in this email from someone who we don't know.
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  Speaker 1: But some personal details about her were also revealed in
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the email.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, that email included a link to her home,
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  Speaker 2: this beautiful home that she owns with her husband and
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: lives in with her kids, about dinners that she hosted
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: out at home incredibly snarkily, you know, referred to them
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: as being quite boring. But yeah, this is a huge
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  Speaker 2: crisis for dinners Tutungi, not just on a professional level
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: but a personal.
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  Speaker 1: Level as well.
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  Speaker 2: It was heavily, heavily critical of her and you can't
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: even imagine what she's going through at the moment.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Ellie Dudley is the Australians of the Legal Affairs correspondent.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Speaking of legal affairs, the Antoinette Latoufe versus the ABC
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: case is back in the Federal Court on Thursday. You'll
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: be able to follow it live by joining US subscribers
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au