Tag: Silke Hitschke. Telenor

Republished 26 September 2020 following inclusion within 2018 Thai firm Duensing – Kippen Criminal Defamation Claim and Illegal Whistleblower Retaliation on behalf Norway company PGS ASA

Everyone mentioned within these blog posts articles could protect the Company and their own reputations and invoke the terms and conditions of their employment contracts. They would rather keep their jobs and pervert the course of justice and protect corrupt and criminal actions against a USA citizen and his family because they are all complicit in the crimes and gang-rape.

In the absence of truth, power is the only game in town.

Richard John Neuhaus

Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.

Napoleon Hill

The image which heads this blog article is the screen capture from a Google™ Image search of PGS #Pedersen.  By any standard, leadership entrusted with advancing the company, as well as its directors and management’s, reputation would not allow being associated with such imagery and accusations.  Therefore, any settlement contract that is intended to end an employment relationship on fair, equitable and reasonable terms, yet allows the employer and its agents open to such public ridicule and criticism would not seem to accomplish its intended objectives.  In fact, the outcome of this settlement has apparently left Norwegian marine seismic service company, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) and its UK affiliate, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited (PGSUK), agents impotent in constructively resolving such an online tirade.  The PGS/PGSUK legal compliance lawyer, Rune Olav Pedersen (PGS #Pedersen) is responsible for this contract and all of the online postings which it has inspired.  PGS #Pedersen was the principal agent who oversaw the resolution of a grievance addressing workplace bullying/mobbing, harassment, defamation, as well as a litany of other indiscretions, mostly regarding the abuse of position.  Agents were allowed to not abide by UK laws and PGS policy.  The grievance concentrated on acts perpetrated by three (3) PGSUK executives, Simon Cather (PGS #Cather), PGS Marine Contract President – Africa, Edward von Abendorff (PGS #Abendorff), VP Marine Contract Sales – Africa, and David Nicholson (PGS #Nicholson), Human Resource (HR) Manager EAME.

PGS #Pedersen is but one of the alleged PGS/PGSUK criminal and corrupt agents who participated in gang violence intended to protect liars and cheaters and silence my voice.  He along with his co-conspirators have been accused, although none have formally retorted or denied these published accusations.  My publications became necessary when PGS/PGSUK corrupt executives, the board, and compliance team did not do what their legal agency requires.  Their objective has not been legal compliance, but rather covering-up illegal executive behaviors.  PGS/PGSUK agents have either lied or ignored my queries.  The accused were allowed to not investigate – or rather, produce a fabricated investigation which was withheld from me to exonerate themselves.  I believe that the settlement contract proffered to me by PGSUK was not legal.  How is it possible to illegally create and process a false narrative supported by false instruments, misrepresentations, and the withholding and destruction of key data/information to affect a legal agreement?  How is it legal for any agent, my own nor any agent of PGSUK, to accept and process such false instruments, misrepresentations, and the withholding and destruction of key data/information on my behalf?  Common sense would tell most that any such agreement is obviously compromised.  But, that is before the corrupted power of misappropriated PGS resources and money enters into the equation.  When this happens, no legal or compliant outcome is possible.  PGS #Pedersen oversaw the workplace violence and plunder of a whistle blower,

It was PGS #Pedersen who allowed my legal right to file a grievance be obstructed (perverting the course of justice), false documents stating a false narrative to be created and processed (fraud and forgery), and finally withheld a medical recommendation which denied me a medical check-up that may have confirmed that their acts of bullying and harassment were in fact health harming (assault?).  PGS #Pedersen did all this while advancing a settlement contract with the specific intent of allowing PGS executives to escape justice and accountability.  The formation of such an agreement required a lot of shenanigans on the part of PGS agents.  Such a conspiracy and confidence fraud required enlisting a long-term customer and third- party agent, Rhodri Thomas, of legal firm Watson, Farley and Williams, to not carry out normal due diligence and to tell one narrative to the UK Border Agency on the one hand, while telling another juxtaposed narrative to forward an illegal settlement on the other.   My (compromised) legal counsel and agent, Philip Landau and Holly Rushton also allowed false instruments and false data to be advanced and processed.  This simply is not legal.  They were acting as double-agents.  Therefore, based on these facts, as well as my former counsel’s lack of support in rectifying such issues and the many queries raised, I was only left to wonder. How much did PGS agents pay you, Philip Landau?  None of these “professional lawyers” answer my questions or have retained and provided substantive documentation of the negotiation processes they were clandestinely involved in.  More revealing, no lawyer involved has taken any legal action to stop my publications that accuse them of criminal behavior.  Their solution is to have me blocked on social media!  That’s the only option that their legal training has allowed them?  (It is as if the truth might put them in jail!)

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

John Steinbeck

You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.

William Shakespear, The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1

When people think of rape, they think it as a sexual crime.  However, studies have shown over and over again that rape is a crime of power.  The legal definition of rape is the unlawful sexual intercourse with a person against their will.  The essential elements of the crime of rape are sexual penetration, force, and lack of consent of the other person.  However, a broader dictionary definition of rape is to plunder or violently seize or steal from another.  By this definition, rape is also not only about sex, but even more so about power.  Within this more extensive definition of rape, there is the power dynamic of control and dominance at its core.  The violent sex act becomes the projection and outcome from the abuse of power, whereby something is violently taken-away without the consent of the target.  Beverly McPhail of the University of Houston asserts that rape “occurs due to multiple motives rather than the single motivation. These multiple motivations include, but are not limited to, sexual gratification, revenge, recreation, power/control, and attempts to achieve or perform masculinity.”  Such dominance is demonstrated within heterosexual prison inmate populations.  In prisons, inmates are held within sexually unnatural, repressive, and humiliating environments.  Inmates resort to a system of (masculine) dominance over the weaker inmates that includes sexual rape.

All forms of workplace harassment are about the abuse of power and authority.  Harassment involves intentionally targeting someone associated with a protected group with behavior that is meant to alarm, annoy, torment or terrorize them.  Hierarchical authoritative power is too often demonstrated through corrupt and abusive social and political dominance.  Workplace bullying is demonstrated through such behaviors targeting individuals outside a protected group.  Workplace mobbing is bullying of an individual by a group.  Workplace mobbing is emotional abuse that involves “ganging up” by co-workers, subordinates or superiors, to force someone out of the workplace through rumor, innuendo, intimidation, humiliation, discrediting, and isolation.  Workplace mobbing is also referred to as malicious, nonsexual, nonracial, general harassment.  Perpetrators of workplace violence or rape rely on the same corrupted power structures that support, and too often promote, all forms of workplace violence.  One of the most severe ramifications of abused power is the loss of control and disempowerment which the targets of such abhorrent behaviors experience.  More to the point, the legal protections that are supposed to be afforded to targets of violence are denied through the intentional abuse and perversion of illegally sanctioned authoritative agency power, such as PGS #Pedersen allowing non-compliant and illegal acts be carried-out as a PGS agent for legal compliance.

There is something very understandable about gang violence.  The fact is that people are more likely to do something if they think they can get away with it.  Large numbers provide some statistical likelihood of not getting caught.  However, more importantly, within the workplace, it is the concentration of power and misused agency authority to preserve such corrupted power which makes justice so difficult to realize for targets of abuse.  When internal governance and compliance do not fulfill their legal agency responsibilities, organizations become lawless.  Non-compliant behavior is too often rewarded directly or indirectly through favoring those who look the other way from witnessing bad behavior.  These bystanders and witnesses of bad behavior who remain silent accommodate all corruption.  Too often HR is used as a conduit to pay “bribes” and to reward people for their complicity.  Money can also be laundered and funneled for seemingly benign bonuses or promotions.  Power and money with no third-party oversight is simply a formula for rampant corruption, which is seen too often these days within every industry.  Harassment and bullying are epidemic, yet justice for such abrogation of civility and workplace policy is rarely realized.  Internal governance is a façade that the corrupt create and misuse for self-preservation of power.  Corrupt corporate agents only need to publish core values or responsibility reports.

Authoritative power can decide which scandals are investigated and punished.  Authoritative power can also allow themselves to misuse shareholder value to do it.  When a report was made to UK Action Fraud, PGS/PGSUK voiced no concern about allegations made against executives.  The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who administer over compliance to the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) have no authentication process and therefore data controllers, such as PGSUK can lie with impunity.  (And they have, thus far.)  Accusing Terje Bjøseth (PGS #Bjolseth), PGS SVP HR and Per Arild Reksnes (PGS #Reksnes), then PGS EVP Marine Contract, and PGS #Cather of forging a memo stating my acceptance of a false narrative does not warrant concern as it is regarded as an “employment issue.”  Even though a person’s employment represents to them a significant amount of money and such fraud is in fact stealing that money, enterprise agent’s access to money and resources to stave off accountability is never in short supply!  PGS #Pedersen and his accomplice within “compliance” are automatically trusted because of their hierarchical authority and the money and resources that it controls.  It has nothing to do with truth or legal compliance.   The likelihood of getting away with a crime is also greatly enhanced with a gang of complicit co-conspirators hiding from the truth.  When corrupt power wants to suppress the truth, it is made easy for them.  The truth is that shareholders and customers actually finance the deceit of misused resources through apathy.  Therefore, the solution for creating workplaces free from health-harming and performance hindering harassment and bullying is for all stakeholders: customers, investors, and competitors, to demand proof of legal compliance and not just hollow statements.  Toxic workplaces cannot be cured through weak and dysfunctional enterprise governance.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.  We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Elie Wiesel

When policemen break the law, then there isn’t any law – just a fight for survival. 

Billy Jack character (Billy Jack, 1971)

When the principal enterprise/corporate agents entrusted with the role of legal and policy compliance are themselves entwined in the illegal and corrupt behavior that they are appointed to govern, it is impossible for any outcome to be legal and compliant.  Nowhere is such a workplace culture of harassment and violent mobbing behavior more manifest than within Norwegian marine seismic service company Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS).  My former employer.  And newly appointed PGS CEO, PGS #Pedersen, is an integral proponent of this toxic culture where corrupt acts by board members and executives are financed by their deceived stakeholders and customers.  What the deafening PGS board and executive silence around such allegations makes clear is their very direct involvement at every level in conspiring to carry-out an intentional and organized cover-up.  PGS #Pedersen is placed front and center in both carrying-out and covering-up these nefarious activities.  Because of PGS #Pedersen’s direct involvement, it is also no surprise that he has now become the CEO.  He is in place to shield the depth of PGS corruption.  No credible or honest person would accept this role and not feel compelled to reveal the truth behind such allegations.  In fact, it is the responsibility of key executives and the board of directors to uphold PGS and their own reputations in the eyes of stakeholders.  Ignoring and remaining silent in addressing such allegations is unprofessional, irresponsible, mean, and corrupt.

There is legal non-compliance to be uncovered, if only an honest investigation were carried-out.  Workplace bullying is referred to as the hidden epidemic.  Workplace bullying and harassment top the list of workplace hazards.  Such workplace violence is corruption by almost any reasonable definition.  It is the first tool of corrupt management to rid the workplace of whistle blowers, complainers, and even threatening talent.  Human Resources departments become weaponized to rid employees that threaten corrupt management.  HR departments also become a money laundering operations that pay out rewards to the incompetent and pliant employees who support the corruption.  HR departments are the avenue used to pay off the settlements that protect perpetrators of violence.  Payrolls are used as bribes to coerce others to support the corrupt and perform duties which are against the law or transgress workplace policies and procedures.  Targets of the corrupt, violent, and health-harming effects of workplace bullying seldom find justice.  Much of this is because the concept of corporate governance is too often utter idiocy in practice.  Corrupt organizations simply do not adhere to their own corporate governance protocols.  Isn’t that what corruption is?  Corrupt executives are allowed to maneuver and manipulate processes to protect themselves from any deserved legal or civil liability because corrupt executives allow themselves this non-agency authority to rig the system to their favor through bypassing local laws and company policies.

For over two-years I have been exposing PGS board and executive corruption and hypocrisy to which PGS #Pedersen has played a principal role.  I have tried to use the legitimate company processes for redress.  There have been lies, threats, but mostly silence in response to my phone calls and emails to compliance team members.  When a group of adults are allowed to conspire, coordinate, and engage in workplace mobbing, involving fraud, with the explicit intent of harming and robbing targets of their professional livelihood and reputation, it should resonate with all stakeholders.  Such violent plunder and theft is intended to harm and destroy the targets of abuse while protecting the rapists.  It is the most evil and despicable kind of corruption.  Stakeholders need to understand that corruption impacts the reputation and performance of all professionals and the markets that employ them.  I implore all stakeholders and decent people to demand that PGS #Pedersen, board, and executive chronicle and explain how their decisions and actions followed legal compliance and policy.  PGS #Pedersen was obliged to uphold legal compliance under his agency for PGS.  The fact that he did not carry out his legal duties also implies very clearly that he is corrupt beyond measure.  I am an enemy of the corrupt board and management because I wanted them to follow the rules, policies and the law (of Norway and England).  I am an enemy of the corrupt board and management because they have misused company resources, diminished the profession, and deceived customers.   They have sanctioned all this to harm me and my family.  No agent from PGS/PGSUK has publicly challenged my truthful narrative.  (They dare not expose themselves to rational dialogue.)  I need the help from stakeholders who care about a fair and level playing field offering the best products and services to step up and challenge corruption.  Challenge corruption, deception, and make the industry more safe and fair by not doing business with opaque organizations who cannot demonstrate their core values or responsible behavior.  This is the plea of all victims of crime: Justice.

Fighting corruption is not just good governance. It’s self-defense. It’s patriotism.

Joe Biden

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

Joseph Addison

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Why Appointing Reinhardsen Chairman of Statoil is a Disastrous Decision for O & G

The phrase “toxic work environment” is code for bad leadership, because a toxic culture simply cannot co-exist in the presence of great leadership.

Mike Myatt, Leadership & Toxic Work Environments

The speed of the leader is the speed of the gang. 

Mary Kay Ash 

Kristin Omreng, PGS ASA SVP Global Human Resources Legacy of Corruption (17 April 2020)

Jon Erik Reinhardsen is currently the CEO and President of Norwegian marine seismic service company, Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS).   Reinhardsen recently (29 May 2017) announced that he will retire from PGS at the end of August 2017.  Reinhardsen is not the only person who needs to retire from PGS.  Reinhardsen never understood the cyclic seismic industry so much as financial instruments and legal loopholes.  PGS desperately needs a solid and ethical leader and executive team who understand thoroughly the cyclic nature and technology demands of the marine seismic industry.  The new CEO should also understand the importance of adhering to core values to serve all stakeholders.  Ethics and values are the only stable thing in business, to which Reinhardsen pays only lip-service.  It is a sad testament to the O & G industry that Reinhardsen has been picked to chair Norwegian oil company Statoil.  This may be the worst decision that the Statoil board has ever made.  Firstly, Reinhardsen is not a leader.  In my view, Reinhardsen is a disingenuous coward who abandoned core ethical business values and practices which have harmed PGS and the greater marine seismic sector, quite possibly beyond repair.  Since he assumed the helm of PGS, in spite of extraordinary capex spending, the market capitalization of PGS has declined from over $5 billion USD to a present value of less than $700 million USD.   Reinhardsen does not possess the integrity or honor to assume such a role.  He also does not appear to possess the commercial acumen either.

PGSVY Market Cap

 Source: https://ycharts.com/companies/PGSVY/multichart

The current marine seismic market is tumultuous and requires a strong and steady leader and manager at the helm.  It demands leadership with character and integrity.  It demands responsible stewardship and owned responsibility.  Reinhardsen has demonstrated none of these qualities while CEO at PGS and yet is rewarded?  The latest addition to the PGS Executive Team is a lawyer and not a geophysicist.  EVP Rune Olav Pedersen is a similarly ethically debased and corrupt compliance team member.  This speaks volumes to how Reinhardsen sees the O & G business.  Through his toxic management practices, corrupt executives are protected by lies and misappropriated and ill-managed money (embezzled) hidden under legal minutiae.  PGS cannot continue their spendthrift corruption forever, and so, of course, Reinhardsen retires from the challenge of ethical leadership.  PGS is a damaged company.  It is my opinion that Reinhardsen, along with many in the upper hierarchy of PGS, should all have been fired and/or put into handcuffs.  I have published extensively my reasons for this belief on www.nopgs.com [now offline since December 2018 due to what I contend was illegal litigation in Thailand.] I first called for Reinhardsen to resign 6 September 2015 in the article, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) CEO Jon Erik Reinhardsen Should Resign.  The latest article highlighting the CEO, The Society of Exploration Geophysicist (SEG) Should Investigate the Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) CEO Reinhardsen Cabal was posted on 17 October 2016.  So, Reinhardsen’s announcement of retirement from PGS is both welcomed and overdue.  On the other hand, his appointment to chair Statoil is mostly tragic.  I fear Statoil’s company value and reputation will be diminished by such a choice. 

Perverting the course of justice is an English common law crime.  There are three key acts which define perverting the course of justice.  Intimidating a witness, juror, or judge; disposing of or fabricating evidence; and falsely accusing someone of a crime.  These are all forms of perverting the course of justice.  (Perverting the course of justice is a serious criminal offense and carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.)  I believe that toxic workplace behaviors often embody the elements of perverting the course of justice, and thus perverts the course of the industry which accepts and promotes such toxic and corrupt management practices.  Also, accepting toxic workplaces to be the sole concerns of agents and stakeholders of the enterprise themselves generally works to empower corrupt management and therefore corruption in general throughout the greater landscape of the market sector even more.  It is an oxymoron to expect internal governance and compliance to be functional within corrupt organizations.  Human nature after all, is just that.  Toxic management, by its nature, is non-compliant and often is antecedent or parallels enterprise corruption and even criminal behaviors.  Directors apply the constraints.  When rules and policies stop being fairly applied this leads to disorder and disorganization.  Disorganized organizations are always less productive and less profitable to the honest stakeholders.  Toxic management embodies these elements.  Further, the belief that toxic management of an organization is a matter only for internal governance and legal compliance is predicated on the myth that abating corruption is a principal interest of those in authoritative power of the enterprise.  This is seldom the case.  Corrupt leadership alwaysfacilitates enterprise corruption through the culture of behaviors that they accept.  Culture is defined by choices and by the decisions that those with authoritative power make.  Culture is performance.  With Reinhardsen as Chairman, Statoil is accepting a disastrous health-harming toxic culture to direct their business decisions in the future.  Good luck.

Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.

Kin Hubbard

The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion.

Voltaire

All of the individual’s named within my articles have always been encouraged to tell their side of the story publicly.  How did their decisions abide by core values, company policy, or common law?  Well, they didn’t and so there is the irresponsible silence which accompanies the void in ethical leadership.  Signing a contrived agreement proffered through misrepresentations, withheld information, and abusive – corrupt – management, and likely countersigned by Reinhardsen is apparently binding for targets of abusive workplaces.  The distressed signature is even more binding than the breach in policy and common law which facilitated the PGS executive executed confidence fraud.  The corrupt protect the corrupt and defile the business and industry in the process.  Toxic management unbridles corrupt behavior and then normalizes it, protects it, and promotes it.  Reinhardsen and his cabal are disgusting and evil human-beings who will destroy livelihoods before facing the truth and being held accountable.  PGS executives run from responsibility.  How is it that Reinhardsen does not feel obligated by his CEO agency status and responsibilities to stakeholders to live the words in his authored Responsibility Letter?  Where are the core values and integrity that embody true leadership?  Vacant.  Those in control of the leadership and management of the enterprise define the culture, develop the processes, and determine how resources are best used.  Organizational leadership, through culture, facilitates either intentionally or through neglect corruptible processes and systems.  Workplace bullying has become epidemic along with corporate corruption.  The two go together hand-in-hand.  Workplace bullying is especially focused on whistle blowers who reveal corruption, and it is whistle blowers who most often pay the highest price in terms of damage to their careers and livelihood.  USA Wells Fargo Bank agents, including compliance and human resource (HR) executives, engaged in relentless non-compliant behaviors and corrupt terminations and blacklisting of whistle blowing employees to hide the fraud and protect the enriched executives.  This is a travesty of justice. It is far too easy for many enterprise executives to be corrupt under the guise that there exists some form of corporate governance and leadership accountability.  Those with the authoritative power to abuse are out of reach of the rules and laws that are supposed to govern the workplace.  Such is the case with PGS as well.

Allowing psychological workplace violence, such as workplace bullying, gang-bullying/mobbing, and harassment, to remain an issue of internal policy of the organization itself undermines markets and all professionals who work within them.  Enterprises work hard to present reputations of ethical business practices grounded in core values.  However, PGS top management have collectively conspired to pervert the course of justice through their misuse of power and resources.  The policy handbook has no value but to the most toxic and corrupt who misuse it to purge grievers and whistle blowers.  The bullies have no dignity or honor because they needn’t have within the corporate gangland.  Narcissistic executives regard industrious and creative employees as threats and pariahs to expel.  Threatening the empowered incompetent and corrupt within a toxic organization places the target of abuse in peril.  The reason that I can publish such blistering critiques and admonishments is because I write the truth.  And while a hefty legal claim is kept out of reach through such fraud and abuses, there is no renunciation of my words from those accused.  The simple fact is that workplace psychological abusers and fraudsters are willing to be called anything.  The abused targets require lots of money and evidence for actions against the corrupt.  The corrupt need only a signature on a voidable contract to remain free from justice. 

Reinhardsen simply does not possess integrity or the temperament to direct a company into the future.  Reinhardsen’s management practices are obscene, cowardly and abusive.  He has never had to answer for his terrible decisions.  This sets a deafening tone from the top.   He is responsible for destroying careers and lives by his active promotion and participation in illegal workplace practices.  No one is demanding that Reinhardsen address such allegations directly and seriously study the evidence.  Why not?  The health and safety of all stakeholders is at stake.  His business decisions are a product of his character and the culture it imbues.  Reinhardsen is allowed to retire with praise while grievers and whistle blowers revealing his corruption and evil management are disposed of.  Reinhardsen is not a leader.  He is too unprofessional, dishonest, insecure, and divorced from what the business actually means to be called a leader.  The industry needs to stop encouraging and promoting toxic management.  Workplace bullying, gang-bullying/mobbing, and harassment are top rated health hazards.  The Deepwater Horizon and Piper Alpha offshore disasters were products of toxic management thinking productivity and profit are achieved through cutting corners in safety.  Those interviewed following the Deepwater Horizon understood that if they complained about abusive work practices of those in charge that their days were numbered.  When will the days be numbered for toxic and corrupt managers?  When will the profession demand their responsible redress?  Executives such as Reinhardsen pervert the course to a safe and high morale workplace.  Reinhardsen owes many an apology.  He should be ashamed.  He should have integrity.  Without these, with his position he can only continue to damage the O & G industry. 

Business, that’s easily defined – it’s other people’s money.

Peter Drucker

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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FORGED MEMO HAS NEVER BEEN DISPUTED BY THE ACCUSED PATHETIC COWARDS WHO UTTERED FORGED INSTRUMENTS

• David Nicholson was accused within the 20 September 2013 Grievance of abuse of position (misuse of the performance management system), discrimination (SDK is a USA citizen on PGS sponsored Tier 2 visa)
• Simon Cather was accused within the 20 September 2013 Grievance of abuse of position (misuse of the performance management system), discrimination (SDK is a USA citizen on PGS sponsored Tier 2 visa)
• Terje Bjolseth is Nicholson’s superior and an agent of parent company in Norway
• Per Arild Reksnes is Cather’s superior and an agent of parent company in Norway
• No one related to this Memo is SDKs first line supervisor (Edward von Abendorff) and do not possess qualified privilege.

Subject has not signed this ridiculous forgery created to hide the fact that PGS ASA, Watson Farley & Williams and Landau Law (formerly LZW Solicitors) broke the law and obstructed the legally guaranteed grievance process which states the that a decision on the grievance MUST BE PROVIDED IN WRITING. The griever MUST ALSO BE INFORMED HE MAY APPEAL the decision.

PGS ASA, Watson Farley & Williams and Landau Law (formerly LZW Solicitors) Uttered Forged Documents to support and illegal settlement contract used to terminate a whistleblower.

The 20 September 2013 Grievance is referenced within the fraudulent settlement contract, but is not referenced within the Memo! The Grievance met the criteria of protected disclosure as defined within the UK Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA).

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• Evidence Philip Landau Law, London Employment Solicitor, Conspired and Accepted Bribes from PGS ASA to Defraud his Client SDK (20 May 2020)
• 17 May 2020 SDK to PGS ASA, Duensing – Kippen, and Watson Farley & Williams (17 May 2020)
• Kristin Omreng, PGS ASA SVP Global Human Resources Legacy of Corruption (17 April 2020)
• The Constant Narcissistic Corruption of Gottfred Langseth, PGS ASA CFO & EVP (9 Apr 2020)
• PGS ASA and Watson, Farley & Williams Crimes and Conspiracy (20 February 2020)
• PGS ASA Capital Markets Fraud and the Art of Bribing Lawyers
• Why won’t PGS ASA Confirm that they did not Misrepresent to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office? (26 July 2019)
• Can PGS Exploration UK Limited Legally Bypass the Terms and Conditions of Previous Contracts Governed Under English Law and Prosecute Claims in Thailand? (3 July 2019)
• Landau Law Didn’t Like My Trustpilot Review? (8 June 2019)
• Philip Landau, London Employment Law Solicitor, Represented a Tier 2 Visa Holder? (26 May 2019)
• Landau, Zeffert & Weir (LZW) Represented Me? (27 April 2019)
• Was Withholding my Occupational Health Nurse Report from me OK? (22 April 2019)
• Submitting Grievances and Whistleblowing as a Foreign Work (8 March 2019)
• Institutional Betrayal, DARVO, Workplace Mobbing, Gaslighting, and the Geo-Services Professional (24 February 2019)
• Proof of Norway’s Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS) Conspiracy to Defraud (12-Aug-2018)
• A Texan’s Run-in with Criminals in #Weybridge, #England (30-Jan-2018)
• The Crimes of @PhilipLandau #London #EmploymentLaw #Solicitor and Petroleum Geo-Services #PGS #CEO #Pedersen (30-Dec-2017)
• ActionFraud Report (Posted November 2017)
• Petroleum Geo-Services #PGS #CEO #Pedersen and the Management of Gang Rape (24 October2017) p120-123
• My Philip Landau and Watson, Farley & Williams (WFW) London Solicitors Testimonial ( 8 November 2016 updated 9 April 2017 )
• Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (@PGSNews) CEO Reinhardsen Perverting the Course (1 June 2017 )
• What #PhilipLandau, #London #EmploymentLaw Solicitor taught me about Settlement Contracts (30 April 2017) p128-129
• Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (@PGSNews) CEO Reinhardsen Perverting the Course (1 June 2017) p129-131
• Culture Breathes from Human Resources (24 September 2016)
• The Crimes of Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) CEO Jon Erik Reinhardsen (4-Sep-2016)
• Workplace Bullying is an Agency Problem and Often a Crime (1-Feb-2016)
• Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) CEO Jon Erik Reinhardsen Should Resign 2 (20-Sep-2015)
• When Human Resources is Corrupt (10-Aug-2015)
• An American, the UK Data Protection Act, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) and the Tyranny of “Accurate Data” (3-Jul-2015)
• Between the Bully and the Deep Blue Sea (5-Jun-2015)

Philip Landau Law – Watson Farley & Williams Confidence Fraud Negotiation E-mails [29 October – 5 December 2013]

o1 November 2013 to 4 December 2013

• First Contact with Philip Landau with Landau, Zeffertt, and Weir Employment Solicitors (LZW) was on 11 October 2013 through an article he had penned comment space.
• On 20 September 2013, I initiated the formal workplace grievance with my

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What #PhilipLandau, #London #EmploymentLaw Solicitor taught me about Settlement Contracts

An Anatomy of the Petroleum Geo-Services (@PGSNews) Confidence Fraud

Corporate executives and business owners need to realize that there can be no compromise when it comes to ethics, and there are no easy shortcuts to success. Ethics need to be carefully sown into the fabric of their companies.

Vivek Wadhwa

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

Having come across an article written by London employment law solicitor, Philip Landau (currently of Landau Law), in October 2013, I contacted and later engaged Landau to help me.  I am a U.S. citizen who was working for PGS Exploration UK Limited [PGSUK] in Weybridge, England at the time on a Company sponsored Tier 2 Shortage Occupation List) visa.  I was working in a toxic workplace and had filed a grievance citing harassment and bullying, in part, through the misuse of the PGSUK performance management system.  Inclusive to the grievance was my claim that an unsubstantiated false narrative regarding my professional performance which was being forwarded by PGS managers to impugn my professional reputation.  I believe that this was defamation and this was cited as well within my grievance.  The only formal employment action between me and PGSUK was the grievance.  There were only threats of a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) being investigated, which I qualified as harassment and bullying.  The negotiations lasted nearly six-weeks from Oct-2013 to Dec-2013.  I left England at the end of 2013 having signed a settlement contract facilitated by Landau and his assistant, Holly Rushton (Landau officially signed-off on the settlement).  Placing so much trust and confidence in Landau was a disastrous watershed event in my life.  At the same time, accepting the/any settlement contract terms was also an act of desperation to exit a toxic and corruptly managed health-harming workplace for me and my family. 

I am not a lawyer.  I am a geophysicist with an understanding of how data is processed.  I also understand how systems work.  The axiom in data processing is garbage in – garbage out.  Legal processes cannot create an illegal outcome.  The principal who advised me on my employment settlement contract and oversaw the processes was Landau.  Because of this, I could never recommend Landau or Rushton to anyone seeking help with any employment law issue.  Never.  Consider this article a public service.  Of course, Landau and others mentioned herein are encouraged to respond or clarify any of the content presented. I will promise to post and respond accordingly.  Some additional food for thought for anyone contemplating engaging Landau as their solicitor: I have been able to publish several articles condemning agents of my former employer, their hired legal counsel, Watson, Farley and Williams (WFW) and even Landau, without comment or rebuke.  The settlement contract contained a non-disparagement clause.  Nevertheless, I have been able to call-out agents of PGS/PGSUK as criminals, fraudsters, charlatans, and assholes.  These articles were first published on LinkedIn™ Pulse (LI) (thr first appeared in July 2015), and currently are now accessible on the website www.nopgs.com [taken down through litigation in Thailand initiated by PGS. I believe illegally.]

In late 2014 following my submission of a subject access request (SAR) citing the UK Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) with PGSUK, I discovered that most every important aspect with regard to my leaving my position through a settlement agreement was ignored.  When I received my personnel file, it contained defamatory false instruments intended to harm me personally and professionally, the very things that my grievance highlighted.  It took me too long to understand that such a disastrous outcome could only result if my counsel, Landau, was in fact serving my past employer’s interests more so than my own.  Landau was my agent to oversee the processes created the desired legal outcome.  This outcome did not happen.  Perhaps it was cognitive dissonance – an inability to believe that a well-qualified and reputed person hired as my agent would not advance my interests.  Since Landau had been provided with my lengthy grievance along with the PGS Exploration UK Limited Handbook and also clarification emails, he would have been able to detect all of the issues which I discovered when I received my personnel file.  It was his responsibility to make certain there was no false narrative backed by false instruments as an outcome.  Initially, I assumed that PGS/PGSUK agents had placed the documents into my file as a form of retaliation after my employment had been terminated.  But, it has become obvious to me now is that the problem was a corrupted settlement contract negotiation process with Landau complicity.    

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

Samuel Johnson

Narrative Tension is primarily about withholding information.

Ian McEwan

In October 2016, I finally decided to request my file from Landau. I have asked Landau pointed questions about the settlement debacle and even published and sent to him My Philip Landau and Watson, Farley & Williams (WFW) London Solicitors Testimonial.  Landau has never provided much insight into the matter and has since blocked me on his Twitter™ (@philiplandau).  I have also called to boycott the PGSUK Norwegian based parent company, Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS) until management is replaced.  I believe that there had been collusion between the three negotiating parties: PGSUK and there counsel, WFW, and of course Landau.  The agents  of these parties engaged in active gaslighting manipulation and deception as part of a confidence fraud that resulted in the most favorable outcome for PGS.  The only way for the outcome to be illegal – false instruments created to support a false narrative within my personnel file – is if Landau allowed it.  After all, it was the unsubstantiated narrative which prompted my grievance in the first place.  I suppose all the aforementioned parties believed that I would disappear in despair somewhere in the USA after being blackballed and bullied out of my career and livelihood in the marine geophysics industry.  Landau and Rushton apparently were not only unsympathetic to my personal health issues resulting from the workplace mobbing or the trauma to my family, but were actually active contributors in the gang assault.  So, if settlement contracts are intended to “settle things” so that parties can move on, the contract signed and approved by Landau as my advisor didn’t achieve this objective.  In fact, it achieved quite the opposite.  In my view, I became, along with my family, victim of a criminal confidence trick. 

Settlement contracts are very binding legal instruments.  So, even if one finds that the party/ies on the other side of the negotiating table did terrible things after the fact, the assumption is that all of the legal material issues were considered during the negotiations.  The reason that employee’s offered settlement agreements need to engage a solicitor is so that they receive correct legal advice.  The role of an advisor-solicitor is to assist the employee is getting the best practical and legal outcome for your situation.  Landau is experienced with employment contracts and has published articles about employment law issues.  The idea of the settlement contract is to let bygones be bygones.  The first mistake that I made was to not be so involved with my negotiation and allow Landau to negotiate without me present to confirm my interests were being advanced.  I am not sure what the normal practice is, after all I was unfamiliar with such situations.  All those around me knew this.  Plus, I was in a foreign country and did not really understand how all the laws and my rights in these circumstances. I am, after all, a professional geophysicist.  However, I believe to trust, and of course verify in both processing seismic data or in my business dealings.  At the same time, I was working in the contract sales and had some concept and understanding of contracts and common law. 

My former employer was able to dictate most of the terms of negotiations while information was withheld from me and many of my core concerns were side-lined.  The principals simply were not that capable in negotiating in such a strong position without solid documentation.  They did not have this.  If they did not have supporting documentation or evidence that processes were followed, how was such a favorable outcome possible?  Simple, PGS agents,with Landau’s cooperation, cheated.  Over time and through review of my notes and subsequent research I concluded that I had been conned, not just by PGS agents, but by WFW agents and Landau as well.  What firmed this conclusion was the non-response to my many articles and many allegations.  People with means with integrity and reputations to preserve simply would not allow such published allegations to be left unanswered.  Of course, people guilty of wrong-doing also will not engage and place themselves in legal peril.  According to the IT law Wiki site, confidence fraud is the reliance on another’s discretion and/or a breach in a relationship of trust resulting in financial loss. It includes a knowing misrepresentation of the truth or concealment of a material fact to induce another to act to his or her detriment.

Truth never damages a cause that is just. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story. ~ Lincoln Steffens

Performance is a legal avenue to terminate an employee and as such, this is a common tool that is misused by toxic management to eliminate targets.  Within the 2013 version of the PGSUK Company Handbook it is stated that workplace bullying, “will not be tolerated.”  (Landau had received a copy after I engaged him.)  I learned, in the most evil way possible, that this is not the case.  Not even close.  Dr. Sophie Henshaw describes workplace mobbing as “bullying on steroids.”  What PGSUK agents, WFW, and Landau have perpetrated against me is mobbing on steroids.  Or more generically, confidence fraud.  This is my allegation for which I have provided proof.  There has been no substantive response from the accused parties.  But, such a negative outcome for me could only be possible through the illegal conspiracy and collusion of all of the principal agents involved in the negotiations.  Workplace mobbing is also referred to as workplace gang-bullying.  Gangs are organized groups of people who associate with each other to forward a certain agenda.  The defining characteristics of workplace mobbing is its unidirectional nature and its use as an intentional weapon to hurt a target. 

Workplace mobbing essentially permits the most insecure, least adept, and most corrupt agents to guide the enterprise while expelling the more coherent, empathetic and capable personnel.  It’s a formula for disaster, and that is why workplace bullying needs to be regarded as illegal in its own right.  Such management is a disservice to all stakeholders and there therefore needs to be appropriate third-party oversight, in my opinion.  PGS/PGSUK agents had been preparing for my leaving the workplace for some time.  In Jun-2013 I had been called to an impromptu meeting that is colloquially called an ambush meeting in workplace bullying lexicon.  I was so disturbed by what occurred in this meeting that I naively indicated to the (corrupt) Human Resources (HR) manager, David Nicholson, who had coordinated the evil event that requested minutes of the meeting and stated that I wanted to file a grievance.  My immediate superior, Edward von Abendorff, along with his boss, Simon Cather, also had attended the meeting.  Aware that their scam had been detected, they withheld the meeting minutes.  I requested something in writing so that I could take action.  In late Jul-2013, I received a letter with a subject line interjecting “investigation into possible Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) – their “legal” avenue.  Another meeting to discuss this letter’s contents, which mimicked some of the content of the ambush meeting, was scheduled for 11-Sep-2013.  This meeting was postponed until 20-Sep-2013, and it was clear to everyone that my response to the letter would be filing a grievance.

I surprised my PGSUK bullies once again by not only grieving against Abendorff, but also against Cather and Nicholson.  On 13-Sep-2013 there was a change of PGSUK Company Secretary.  Directors of companies are ultimately responsible for health and safety issues, compliance, and contracts.  I had mailed my grievance the fore-mentioned and the SVP of HR, Terje Bjølseth, SVP Contract, John Greenway, EVP Marine Contract, Per Arild Reksnes, and my co-worker/witness, John Barnard.  The actual meeting on 20-Sep-2013 where I delivered the grievance document in person was attended by myself, Abendorff, Nicholson, and Barnard.  A grievance hearing was scheduled for 14-Oct-2013 chaired by Bjølseth and Reksnes.  On 10-Oct-2013 Nicholson offered me a settlement contract to terminate my employment because, legal in both Norway and Weybridge thought that I was in dispute with the Company, because I was the target following policy and procedures.  I declined the offer and attended the hearing.  PGS delayed any response to my grievance and perhaps knew by experience that I would seek counsel.  It is a legal requirement that employee’s offered settlement contract be advised by legal counsel and Nicholson had shared this information with me.  It was during this wait that I contacted Landau.  He had been provided with all of the facts stated and otherwise knew the Company principals.  PGS decided to outsource the settlement negotiations to WFW.  PGSUK had a long standing business relationship with WFW, having hired their employees in either a temporary or even full-time capacity.  WFW had also processed all of the paperwork pursuant to me and my family’s visas which had been renewed for another 3 years in Jul-2013.  PGSUK had stated that my services were required to UK Border Agency between the ambush meeting and ambush letter.

Serious misfortunes, originating in misrepresentation, frequently flow and spread before they can be dissipated by truth.

George Washington

It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour

Thomas Jefferson

I have discovered that it is a legal requirement that grievers be provided with a conclusion to any grievance hearing along with notification that they can appeal unfavorable decisions.  Landau did not press PGS/PGSUK to submit to these legal requirements.  Instead, Landau pressed that I would likely get a better settlement if I did not press on this (legal requirement).  I never received a conclusion or the minutes from the grievance hearing, nor did my witness.  I asked Landau about how the terms would be impacted by my Tier 2 visa status.  There would be pauses in the negotiations.  When I filed an SAR with WFW, they did not provide any of the Tier 2 application documentation.  According to WFW, there was no discussion of my citizen status.  This corresponds with Landau’s “file” and is ridiculous because for bullying to be illegal harassment the target needs to be a protected class.  My claims of bullying and harassment were never investigated even though I asked Landau about it specifically.  However, the real issue is whether a PIP conformed with information PGSUK provided to UK Border Agency because misleading the agency would also be illegal.  Would have I been granted the Tier 2 visa if PGSUK had revealed that it was the intention to place my on a PIP?  Likely not, as the SOL visa displaces locally qualified applicants.  Landau never pursued this avenue and continued to press for a settlement predicated on unestablished “underlying performance issues” which PGSUK never was requested by Landau to substantiate.  Why? 

Landau never seemed to use my visits made to Doctors as leverage to substantiate the health harming effects of PGS/PGSUK toxic management practices.  PGS/PGSUK even had a report citing the same findings completed by their contracted occupational health nurse (OHN).  Landau never cited this report or that I could have received a fit note from my NHS GM.  PGS/PGSUK was able to destroy and withhold this health report which they had requested during the negotiations.  The UK has the National Health Service.  The US does not.  When I returned to the US I did not have health insurance for myself and my family.  I had requested to be able to purchase PGSUK Company plan insurance on my own for six-months.  But, Landau could not leverage any concession there.  Landau did not negotiate positively a single concession based on the unique special circumstances.  On the day before signing the settlement contract, PGS/PGSUK, WFW, confirmed that all data held about me was accurate.  Landau accepted PGS/PGSUK and WFW on their word and never stated that I could make a SAR, or similar, and actually see the data which PGS/PGSUK processed about me to confirm that it was accurate.  How much more can you help the other side? 

PGS/PGSUK knew that I was motivated to flee the toxic work environment because it was stated within the OHN report which I never received, even though the OHN requested that it be sent to me by Nicholson.  I had to make a separate SAR following my SAR to PGSUK to find this out.  The day before I signed the settlement contract I asked Landau if I should go to tribunal.  He advised no.  Based on what?   Tribunal would not have been the next step.  We would have had to have reverted back to the grievance and then receive the report and letter stating that I could appeal.  Then I would have had an appeal, and THEN we would have had to consider tribunal.  But wait!  Dated 25-Oct-2013 is a Memo written to my attention stating that the grievance was concluded!  This is a false document citing the 11-Sep meeting which never happened and a letter which I never wrote.  The conclusion does not even reference the grievance document which I presented!  The PGS/PGSUK, WFW, and Landau false narrative was the basis of fake negotiation that lasted for six-weeks.  Six-weeks of lies and gaslighting that negatively affected my health and effectively ended my career in the marine seismic industry.  Of course, PGS/PGSUK shared this defamatory information with their US based agents to interfere with my job search.  While I cannot prove this, I am certain of it.  I could tell by the interviewer questions and it’s what prompted me to submit my SAR in the first place.  Corrupt and criminal PGS/PGSUK agents have lied throughout all of this.  They have lied to me, to UK Border, to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and to stakeholders.  They have been able to lie because of Landau’s binding settlement.  Corrupt PGS/PGSUK agents have such little respect for stakeholder clients, employees, and shareholders that without shame they highlight grifters like Cather as spokespeople for anti-corruption.  Laughing like this only hurts.  What Landau taught me about employment settlement contracts is that you cannot trust anyone.     

Truth is truth to the end of reckoning.

William Shakespeare

Psychopaths know intellectually what is immoral they just don’t have a feeling of immorality about it.

Barbara Oakley

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The Hazards of Multi-Corporate Workplace Mobbing and Bullying on Settlement Agreements

What #PhilipLandau, #London #EmploymentLaw Solicitor taught me about Settlement Contracts 25-Apr-2017

If you are still in employment and you cannot resolve the matter informally with your line manager, then it is best to first lodge an internal grievance. 

Philip Landau, Discrimination at work: understanding the Equality Act

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 employers are responsible for the health, safety and welfare at work of all employees.

Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), Bullying and Harassment at Work

I am a USA citizen who was sponsored for employment in Weybridge, England on a Tier 2 shortage occupation list (SOL) basis.  I have the unfortunate experience of having been in need of legal guidance in employment law during my overseas assignment.  My family -Tier 2 dependents – also resided and were sponsored by my employer.  I was an outsider from another country unfamiliar with UK employment law and practices.  I had worked globally with affiliates of the Norwegian based company, Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS).  As a foreign worker, I relied heavily on the core values, policies and processes promulgated by PGS executive management as a basis for the conditions of my employment.  In October 2013 – over three years ago – I engaged London based solicitor Philip Landau, currently of Landau Law.  I had submitted a formal grievance citing health-harming workplace bullying (mobbing), harassment, and other executive wrong-doing within the Weybridge, England based affiliate, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited (PGSUK).  (It might have been considered whistle-blowing.)  PGSUK, with guidance from PGS executives and legal staff, had offered me a settlement agreement following the submission of my formal grievance, but prior to a scheduled grievance hearing.  The HR Manager said that PGS senior legal, HR and Contract executives regarded my grievance as a dispute with the company.  In my view, I was the only actor following policy and law.  I rejected the initial settlement offer, which was proffered by one of the principals implicated in the grievance, and decided to proceed to the grievance hearing.  Distraught, vulnerable, and confused, I sought to learn more about my predicament and seek counsel.  This is my testimonial about the professional services which I received from Landau.

Settlement agreement offers come as a shock to many employees.  In England, it is required that the offeree of a settlement contract receive legal counsel to guide them through the process.  It was during the delay following the grievance hearing entertained via video conference by the Norwegian superiors (which I didn’t feel was handled well at all) that I started to search for a solicitor for advice.  Landau is a prolific writer on topics of employment law in The Guardian, as well as other venues.  I came upon one of his articles (on workplace bullying, I believe), whereupon I provided some contact details.  Landau was with Landau, Zeffertt and Weir Solicitors at this time.  Following this initial contact, Landau contacted me.  I provided him with more details about my situation, which included my lengthy grievance.  Landau requested that I summarize key points.  I was awaiting to hear some decision or receive some minutes about my grievance hearing which I had attended prior to my search for legal counsel.  Fundamentally, my grievance was about being harassed and bullied and then pushed toward an investigation into a possible performance improvement plan.  My grievance challenged the fairness and propriety of the PGSUK performance management system and the unsubstantiated false-narrative and justifications for pushing me toward that direction.  Even the Landau Law website (currently) describes bullying as misusing the performance management process:

Some of the classic signs of bullying includes being frozen out of meetings which the individual would normally be expected to attend, having people who would normally report to them taken away, not being asked to pub lunches or other office gatherings, being put on unwarranted performance improvement plan, being given a poor appraisal, being overly critical in emails and verbal communications, and being generally unpleasant and belittling.

Office Bullying, Landau Law website

My grievance was predicated on an event which is referred to as an ambush meeting in workplace bullying vernacular.  On very short notice I was invited to my ambush meeting by the HR manager.  Both my immediate supervisor and his immediate supervisor were also there waiting for me.  During this meeting, I had to endure and listen to these three bullies spew unsubstantiated bullshit my way.Very soon following the ambush meeting, I requested minutes of the meeting, queried how the meeting conformed with workplace policy, and also queried about raising a grievance about the entire unprofessional (illegal?) experience.  I was denied all of these requests.  Information was withheld and designated policies transgressed.  This happened on 13-Jun-2013.  At this point, nothing had been documented for me to respond to, and so I requested something in writing.  On 24-Jul-2013 I received a letter (which I had requested, as I wanted something in writing).  The HR Manager authored a letter with the subject line, Investigation for possible implementation of a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).  This is what I refer to as the ambush letter which restated the unsubstantiated claims brought-up during the ambush meeting.  This is where the HR manager interjected performance into the communications.  (My intention to file a grievance proceeded the delivery of the ambush letter.)  Within this letter was an invitation to a meeting on 11-Sep-2013 where we could discuss the issues brought-up.  This meeting was postponed until 20-Sep-2013.  PGSUK had tried to push me toward a PIP, but I simply did not see that PGS has any evidence to support a PIP.  My response to the letter was my grievance which pointed this out.  So, for an incident which initiated 13-Jun, I was finally going to be able to present my argument 20-Sep.  Though there were attempts to delay the meeting, I was determined to present my grievance that day. The grievance delivery meeting was short.

A grievance hearing was scheduled for 14-Oct-2013.  All of this information was provided to Landau for review.  I even provided him with a the PGS Company Handbook.  The work environment continued to be hostile and I essentially knew I had to leave.  I did engage Landau to help me.  On 25-Oct-2013 Landau notified me by email that he had made contact with PGS/PGSUK lawyers to discuss my situation.  Landau seemed to be steering me toward a settlement solution and to not complete the grievance process.  (Of course, if the situation were to go to actually go to tribunal it is preferable that to follow the prescribed workplace process of the grievance, I had read.)  I was sort of confused at the advice to be honest because PGSUK simply had not presented any documentation to support their performance claims.  Even Landau’s advice points out the proper path (below).  None of this was followed by PGSUK.  The need for the PIP had not even been determined at that point, according to the ambush letter.

If there is a disciplinary case to answer, you should be notified in writing with sufficient information about the issues and be given details of a disciplinary meeting, time and venue. The disciplinary meeting should be held as soon as possible and you should have a reasonable time to prepare for your case. Employers should provide evidence of any wrongdoing, and you should be allowed to answer any allegations, ask questions, present evidence and call relevant witnesses.

Landau Law website

PGSUK decided to have a law firm which they often conducted business with to negotiate the settlement instead of their legal staff.  I was familiar with Watson Farley and Williams (WFW) because they had advised and handled the Tier 2 visa process for me and my family.  In fact, I (we) had received my second Tier 2 visa on 15-Jul-2013 – nine days before the delivery of the ambush letter – indicating that my services were required by PGSUK.  Honestly, everything was very strange to me.  At the start of negotiations with WFW, I was forwarded the following mail:

“Without prejudice” discussions essentially do not bind parties to any of the concessions which may be made during the negotiation process in the event that no agreeable settlement contract terms are achieved.  There are many questionable things about this communication.  For one thing, my grievance essentially was my response to the ambush letter.  Also, I had always wanted to go through the legal grievance process.  PGSUK offered the settlement to avoid the grievance process.  The underlying performance issues were never substantiated by any process or documented and were in fact the basis for my grievance in the first place.  At the same time, I had just paid money to Landau.   Landau’s assistant during the negotiations was Holly Rushton.  (Rushton followed Landau to Landau Law, but now is with Hine Legal.)  I have to say that I was never completely satisfied with the settlement reached.  The process took its toll on me and my family.  I was visiting doctors regarding trouble sleeping and just normal health issues that needed attending to while I had medical benefits and insurance.  During the month of November 2013, I had taken a week of sick leave.  I had never abused my sick leave in all of my years working for PGS.  Nevertheless, my direct supervisor and the HR manager requested that I see the contracted occupational health nurse.  By this time, I was very motivated to leave the unpleasant and toxic work environment, but not on ridiculous terms.  PGSUK/PGS knew this because it was in the health report which they had requested.

The negotiations continued through the month of November.  I signed a settlement on 5-Dec-2013, but I remained employed until 31-Dec-2013 as I was placed on garden leave.  Within the article, Settlement agreements: what do employees need to know?, it is stated that settlement agreements are typically offered to employees when they are being made redundant or if an employer can show that they are performing badly in their job or are guilty of misconduct. Typically, the employee is given money in return for certain conditions, such as not bringing a claim against their employer.  “A settlement agreement will only become binding once you have received independent legal advice on it,” says Philip Landau.  He follows with saying, “if you get it wrong, there’s no going back, and this is why the legislation insists that you take independent legal advice.”  I was involved very little and kept rather busy with work while the negotiations commenced.  This was likely a mistake, but I was kept quite busy with work.  I did insist on a mutual non-disparagement clause being included within the settlement.  I kept a hands-off attitude and let Landau do what he was both professionally qualified and experienced to do.  After all, he had published articles about the legal process.  I left England unemployed.

There were many discussions with regard to the non-disparagement clause, especially as it applied to the three principals which were the focus of my grievance.  Everyone was very aware of my concerns about the PGS narrative.  As far as 4-Dec-2013 this was an issue:

During the final days of negotiations, bedraggled and confused I signed, what I now believe was, an illegitimate contract.  This is what I have discovered.  PGS, WFW and Landau had conspired to agree on a false narrative with the intent to harm me and protect the corrupt organization and their bullies.  I believe it to be fraud.  Through the play in words, “underlying performance issues” the colluding parties turned a grievance regarding bullying and harassment into a legal performance-based termination and separation.  PGS was able to do this without providing any defense or documentation.  All they needed was a pliant and corruptible pair of solicitors such as Thomas, and more importantly, Landau and Rushton.  The negotiations were carried out on a false narrative.  This is called gaslighting. Wikipedia says that gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the target and delegitimize the target’s belief.  The only way for such a disastrous settlement outcome was through the actions of Landau.  It was an illegal termination made to look legal.

About 10-months after leaving England, Oct-2014, citing the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), I submitted a subject access request (SAR) to PGSUK.  I made Landau aware of my SAR with PGSUK at the time.  A SAR allows data subjects, such as myself, to receive copies of all personal data which a data controller, such as PGSUK, holds about them.  When I received my personal data from PGSUK, I was astonished.  The contents of my personnel file were populated with mostly forged/false documents pertinent to my troubled period of employment with PGSUK.  The final health report which I never received in Nov-2013 even though the nurse requested a copy be sent to me (in England) a recommended a follow-up visit, had been destroyed from my record along with my grievance document.  (I received a copy through a separate SAR to the nurse in 2014.)

I went round-and-round with the PGSUK personal data processors (Human Resources [HR]), most notably the principal processor was the HR Manager whom I had filed a grievance against, requesting that PGSUK remove the false instruments.  PGSUK adamantly refused to remove any data from my personnel file even though DPA requires that only fair and accurate data is processed.  Soon after I received my data from PGSUK I sought legal advice only to learn how binding settlement agreements were.  Even though I could easily show the information held within my personnel records were false from email histories and other documentation, it did not matter.  The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that determines DPA compliance does not have a standard or authentication process for held data.

Character assassination is at once easier and surer than physical assault; and it involves far less risk for the assassin. It leaves him free to commit the same deed over and over again, and may, indeed, win him the honors of a hero in the country of his victims. ~ Alan Barth

One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.~ Ida B. Wells

I knew that the information held within my personnel file was false.  In July 2014, I decided to confront the issue through blogging because of the strength of settlement contract in prohibiting future ligation.  I could not stand defamatory content residing in my personal data.  That is where I am now.  I have published many articles about this issue since then.  At first, I published on LinkedIn™ Pulse (LI), where I had pretty good readership.  However, when I begin to post my queries on the LI PGS space comment section several times, I was restricted.  I had had over 4600 connection on LI and managed a group, Marine Seismic Survey, with over 1450 members.  PGS has never fully responded to any of my queries.

Since August 2016, I have split content onto two websites.  On www.marineseismicsurvey.com , I continue to blog about issues on the marine geophysical exploration.  My newer site, nopgs.com <taken down December 2018 through dubious litigation in Thailand> , now holds my blogs which challenge the false PGS narrative through presenting my truthful narrative of events.  NOPGS is an acronym for NO Psychopaths in Geo-Services.  (Bullies often have psychopathic and narcissist qualities.)  In addition to NOPGS hosting my blogs, I also provide links to articles on workplace violence, harassment, bullying, mobbing, and whistle blowing, as well as holds some informative information videos.  I believe workplace bullying a terrible thing.  It is known as the silent epidemic which infects too many workplaces.  My aim is to inform and empower targets of this dysfunctional management and abuse.  The key issue for me is that no settlement agreement can change the truth.  At this point in time I have accused PGS agents, including the CEO, of lying, cheating, and fraud.  That is the power of truth.  However, all of this does not address the central issue of how these false instruments were able to remain in my personnel file in the first place.

Recently, I requested my case file from Landau.  I also submitted an SAR to WFW.  I am not sure why I waited so long.  I was looking at the problem as a retaliation constructed after my termination of employment from PGSUK.  However, PGS/PGSUK has double-downed on not changing any of the contents held within my personnel records.  I have even brought the issues to the attention of the PGS Compliance Team.  If we hold PGSUK/PGS by this information which they hold, then that means these documents were held within my personnel file during the negotiation process.  This means that Landau/Rushton and WFW processed false instruments.  The many issues which I have with my personnel file are best presented within article 8, The Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) Ambush Meeting and the Definition of Fraud.   In reviewing my email communications with Landau and Rushton, it is clear that they were provided with the information to detect many of the issues which I detected within my personnel file.  This is why I did not initially target my complaints with Landau.  I just assumed the issue was with PGS/PGSUK agents.  My file from Landau contains no notes or information beyond the emails that we exchanged.  He has not provided the names of PGS lawyers that he references within a separate communication, nor the source documents to support PGSUK’s position.

The most significant document held within my file is a memo titled, Conclusions from Grievance Hearing, which is dated 25-Oct-2013.  There are many problems with this document, not least of which is that I never received the memo 25-Oct-2013, I received it with my SAR content.  The additional problem with this memo, is that it contradicts the pretense of the 01-Nov-2013 without prejudice discussions.  These discussions went on for over four-weeks.  Had the settlement discussions fell through, then the grievance would have had to be addressed.  That is what without prejudice means.  If conclusions were already made, what was the purpose of the settlement discussions?  Were there really settlement discussions or did all the lawyers just kill time until I gave-up and accepted the settlement offer?  Landau and WFW Risk and Compliance Director, Neeta Aulak, have been provided article links (8 & 13), but have thus far been unwilling to answer questions or clarify what was discussed for over four weeks.  Landau and WFW will not state which PGS/PGSUK agents provided the source information and how that information was vetted or even what source information they used to base their decisions.

The PGS/PGSUK narrative is substantially different from what I provided through my grievance and emails, as well as other information sent to Landau.  At no time did PGS/PGSUK, Thomas, or Landau request or discuss clarifications.  The above email also indicates that WFW solicitor Rhodri Thomas knew about the grievance and cites performance issues.  What were the specific performance issues?  They are wholly undocumented and unsubstantiated.  That was the point of the grievance!  The contents and narrative of my personnel file are false instruments stating an unsubstantiated false narrative.  The documents contain wrong dates and reference none existent documents and/or meetings.  As Landau states, you better get the settlement right.  I am now gaining a better appreciation of what happens when lawyers form a bad settlement agreement.  Landau is a prolific writer and I would like for him to respond to these issues.  Thus far, these questions have left him without words to explain to his former client.  This is what is suspicious.  If Landau were my truth advocate, then he would also want honest clarification about the veracity of the contents held within my personnel file following his negotiated settlement contract on my behalf.  What incentive did Landau and Thomas (WFW) receive from PGS/PGSUK to not follow the very advice which one writes and reads about?  (I suppose starting a new legal firm is a good way to launder money.)  I do not know all the ins-and-outs of settlement contracts.  However, the end result cannot be unfair or inaccurate personal data simply because it would then violate the DPA.  Also, I am not a compliance and risk director, but the agency is legal compliance and not cover-up.

Since leaving England, I have read more about UK employment and criminal law to try and understand what happened to me.  The article What is Mobbing? – The Office Disease states that, “The expulsion of the targeted person was predetermined by those doing the mobbing from the very start and there was nothing the targeted person could have done to resolve the issue.”  Workplace mobbing involves the direct support and involvement of upper management.  Upper management will break policies and laws it seems to achieve this often corrupt and psychopathic objective.  With mobbing, it is never a fair fight.  When mobbers corrupt the one sliver of equity and refuge that targets of workplace violence have – their legal protections – this only punctuates the cowardice and corruption of senior executives who are not concerned with managing enterprises so much as being in the top tiers of their corporate hierarchy where they are paid handsomely for their charade.  I knew PGSUK management let me down, and so I sought justice from PGS executive management.  I knew PGS executive management let me down too, and so I sought Landau.  And in this respect, it is Landau who let me down the most.  I hired Landau because he had knowledge and a reputation which he shared with the public. The only possibility for any degree of parity exists from outside the mobbing organization.  It is imperative that your legal counsel is an advocate who understands the interweaving dynamics of organization psychology and employment law involved with workplace bullying and mobbing.  Workplace bullying may not be explicitly against the law.  However, the abuse of position is a form of fraud and senior executives and company directors have an agency responsibility to be fair to employees, be trustworthy, and especially maintain a safe workplace.  We do not need laws against workplace bullying so much as we need to make executives of companies accountable for the decisions that they make.  It is the role of solicitors to make sure such decisions are legal and just, because in reality the greatest risk to any enterprise is senior management that allows non-compliant decisions.

There are limits, however, to the ‘without prejudice’ rule. It cannot be used to hide perjury, blackmail or ‘unambiguous impropriety’

Reed Smith LLP

“Unambiguous impropriety” amounts to a catch-all description of situations where the cloak of the without prejudice rule acts so as to shield some bad action on behalf of the party invoking it, and is in effect an exception based upon the rule of unconscionability—that such bad action should not be protected by a rule of public policy.

Chris Bryden & Michael Salter trace the origins & history of the without prejudice rule

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