Accounting firm attempts to invoke unique provision in former partner’s employment agreement

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted December 6, 2022 10:49 AM

In what sounds like an arbitration joke by an accounting firm with a $40 million claim against a former partner, BDO USA invoked a provision in Eric Jia-Sobota’s employment agreement that said the arbitrators would be five BDO partners.Objecting, Jia-Sobota argued that “permitting BDO’s partners to effectively sit in judgment of their own case would be both unconscionable and against public policy, given their patent self-interest.”This isn’t the first time BDO tried this maneuver. In cases that “have considered the …

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