RadiumOne CEO addresses Chahal situation in leaked memo

Bill Lonergan says that Chahal might sue the company, explains why it took so long to fire him

After Gurbaksh Chahal was fired as CEO of ad platform RadiumOne earlier this week, he put up a self serving, and tone deaf, blog post, that made it clear that the breakup between him and the company was not going to go smoothly.

I mean, Chahal was still referring to himself as CEO, and talking about how he wanted to run things, even after the board dismissed him! One thing is for certain: he is definitely not going to go gently into that good night.

Now a memo, sent out by newly appointed RadiumOne CEO Bill Lonergan on Monday, and obtained by ReCode, shows that even RadiumOne is waiting to see what Chahal will do next.

"We cannot know for certain what Gurbaksh will do, and certainly hope he will take no action that hurts or distracts the company," Lonergan wrote in regards to what, if any, legal action Chahal could take against his now former company.

"We do not believe he has any legitimate claims against the company, and we are therefore confident that the company would prevail against such claims."

It had previously been pointed out that since Chahal is the company's major shareholder, and the director and chairman of the board, so he might have control over key decisions made at the company, including potentially his own future there. Lonergan dismissed this, however.

"The company will remain fully functional even with Gurbaksh on the board. He has no executive authority and because of the composition of the Board Gurbaksh cannot impact any decisions affecting the business," he said.

Lonergan also addressed the elephant in the room: why it took so long for the board to finally get rid of Chahal. 

First, he said, the board wanted to wait and let the legal system work out whether or not any of the charges were actually true. Once Chahal pled guilty to two misdemeanors for domestic violence and battery, paying a $500 fine, and thereby avoiding a total of 45 potential felony charges, the board tried to get him to resign, which Chahal refused to do.

"When it was clear that Gurbaksh did not intend to resign as CEO and Chairman, the board called a special meeting to terminate his employment," said Lonergan.

Lonergan also maintained that, despite what Chahal has to say about it, the board never encouraged him to take his plea deal. Though they did say that "n outcome which prevented prolonged court proceedings might be in the best interests of the company," in the end "Gurbaksh and only Gurbaksh made the final decision on whether to accept the plea agreement."

And finally, the memo also addressed whether or not RadiumOne might still go public. The answer: maybe?

"Many of you have asked me about our plans for an IPO. It is very straightforward right now, our primary focus is on continuing to grow our business as fast as possible whilst remaining profitable. In that way we preserve our optionality on the timing of an IPO."

VatorNews has reached out to RadiumOne to vertify the authenticity of the memo, and to get a comment from the company about it's content. We will update if we learn more. 

(Image source: sfgate.com)