Emma McIntyre
A shareholder in trend large Guess Inc. on Wednesday plans to publicly demand the retailer dump its embattled co-founder Paul Marciano, who’s been accused of sexual assault or harassment by a minimum of 10 girls, and name out members of the board for failing to take action.
“For greater than a decade, allegations of sexual assault and harassment towards Paul Marciano have mounted, together with whereas his brother Maurice Marciano served as Chairman of the Board,” Legion Companions co-founder Ted White stated in an announcement. “Now we have heard from victims, advocates and our fellow GES buyers—who've echoed our demand that it's time for the unbiased administrators of the Board lastly to step up and take away the Marciano brothers from Guess.”
In a presentation to be launched to shareholders, which The Every day Beast obtained and reviewed, the funding agency plans to single out unbiased board members like Laurie Ann Goldman, who typically speaks about feminine empowerment. “We name on Ms. Goldman to behave in step with her repute as a robust supporter of ladies and handle the problems related to Paul Marciano,” the presentation declares.
Final month, Legion known as on the board to take away the Marcianos, citing themanyallegationstowardsPaul and a 2018 probe concluding the mogul “exercised poor judgment” and put himself in conditions the place “believable allegations of improper conduct may, and did, come up.”
UPDATE: Guess issued a prolonged assertion on Thursday. “Legion Companions’ declare that the Board has 'turned a blind eye' to allegations concerning Paul Marciano is demonstrably false,” the corporate wrote. “The Guess Board takes allegations of sexual impropriety or unethical conduct extraordinarily severely.” The assertion added: “The Board’s choice to proceed to make use of Paul Marciano and re-nominate him as a director was knowledgeable by the findings of the months-long Particular Committee investigation, which was decided to be extra complete, conclusive and correct than something reported within the media or elsewhere.”