A lawsuit filed by Barnes & Noble’s former CEO Demos Parneros on 28th August charging his former employer with breach of contract and defamation of character after his dismissal last month has revealed that the giant bookseller was to be quietly sold off this year before the deal fell through.
Barnes & Noble are thought of as one of the giants of the bookselling industry, about the only company to come close to rivalling Amazon, and even having their own branded eReader. But now thanks to this lawsuit it’s announced that in June a rival withdrew its offer to buy the chain after completing due diligence due to a number of unflattering revelations about how the company operates. The rival bookseller is unnamed in the announcement, and we wouldn’t like to hazard a guess as to who it may have been.
Parneros claims that the brand became hostile to him after the deal fell through and communications started to slide. Shortly afterwards Parneros was fired for ‘violations of the company’s policies’ after just 15 months in the role, continuing a trend for fast turnovers of chief executives for the brand.
Parneros now says he hopes to clear his name and is asking for $4 million in severance for being dismissed without cause, as well as damages for loss of potential earnings and mental anguish. The B&N board has rejected the charged and called the lawsuit ‘nothing but an attempt to extort money from the company by a CEO who was terminated for sexual harassment, bullying behaviour and other violations of company policies. Parneros stringently denies the sexual harassment claims and the outcome of the lawsuit is yet to be decided.
So while B&N may stand as a stalwart to the literary industry, it seems it may be for sale and any sale could really turn the literary industry upside down.
Amazon Under Fire for Sale of Modern Novel Sold as a ‘Classic’
400,000 books destroyed in fire including book signed by Queen Victoria
Tributes pour in for Gay’s the Word Bookshop Founder, Peter Dorey