A former senior WPP executive has claimed he was fired for blowing the whistle over the alleged concealment of billions of dollars in client rebates at the advertising group.
Richard Foster, the British former global chief executive of Motion Content Group, a subsidiary of GroupM Worldwide, now known as WPP Media, has filed a lawsuit in New York against WPP and GroupM seeking damages of more than $100 million. WPP said the company would defend itself against the allegations “vigorously”.
Foster worked for WPP for 17 years and served as global chief executive of Motion Content Group from 2017 until he was dismissed earlier this year. He led the global content creation division that invested about $500 million annually into entertainment partnerships, including Love Island, producing more than 2,500 television series during his tenure, according to a lawsuit filed against WPP and GroupM.
GroupM consolidated the media buying power of WPP clients, providing a potential competitive advantage to those clients by leveraging their combined spend to secure incentives from ad-supported media platforms, including cash rebates, the filing alleges. The lawsuit claims that rather than being passed back in full to clients, GroupM turned those rebates into a hidden profit stream.
Foster alleges that over the past five years, GroupM generated between $3 billion and $4 billion from rebate-driven deals, of which it improperly retained between about $1.5 billion and $2 billion.
Foster...
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