Wal-Mart Bosses Sued by Pension Fund

A Californian pension fund, one of the biggest in North America, has filed a lawsuit against current and former Wal-Mart leaders. The charge is that they breached their responsibility when handling an alleged bribery scheme. Over 5.3 million shares ion WMT are held by the California State Teacher's Retirement System, whose CEO, Jack Ehnes said in a statement, "By utilizing the derivative action, (the pension fund) is seeking to remedy the damages sustained by Wal-Mart as a result of alleged gross misconduct by Wal-Mart's executive officers and directors. The focus of this action....is corporate governance reform to ensure that similar misconduct is not repeated in the future. We need truly independent directors who will set the right tone from the top." Ehnes believes that the alleged scandal could amount to a "Fortune 100 version of Watergate". That seem to be overstating things somewhat, but it is a measure of how seriously Ehnes and his people are taking this. The suit lists some current bosses at WMT, including CEO Mike Duke and Vice Chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright, plus former executives like John Menzer, who was vice chairman when the bribery scheme in Mexico is alleged to have occurred.