SGB is proud to announce that its client, Todd Pierce, prevailed on claims against the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Judgment in Pierce’s favor has been entered for damages over $4.6 million.

Pierce was recruited away from a lucrative job and his home in San Francisco to join the Gates Foundation in a newly conceived role of Chief Digital Officer. The CDO job was developed during a months-long negotiation and recruitment process. Pierce arrived in Seattle to find that the job he had been promised did not exist in any real way and efforts he made to perform were routinely frustrated; 18 months later, the Foundation fired him, admitting it had been premature to hire a CDO in the first place. The court found that the Foundation had breached its contract with Pierce, violated its duty of good faith and fair dealing, and broken its promises.

SGB attorneys Becky Roe and Lindsay Halm represented Pierce at trial.

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