AKRON (CN) - Oak Associates, a family of seven mutual funds, and its founder and CEO James Oelschlager fired their marketing and sales supervisor because he refused to publish illegal, misleading financial reports, William White claims in Summit County Court. White claims Oak Associates funds "have decreased substantially in value ... for the past several years," and that Oelschlager repeatedly pressured him to cherry-pick short-term periods when the funds did well and use the deceptive figures to hawk the goods.
White states: "Plaintiff reasonably - and correctly - believed that publishing such short term data as Oelschlager requested would violate SEC and national exchange rules, could mislead the public and could expose him and/or his employer to criminal prosecution and/or civil liability. He repeatedly advised Mr. Oelschlager that they could not lawfully engage in such marketing and he repeatedly declined to publish such data.
"On some occasions, when Plaintiff resisted Mr. Oelschlager's requests, Oelschlager chided him that his concerns were unfounded - not because the conduct was legal but rather because Oelschlager simply believed the SEC had 'bigger fish to fry' than Defendant. As these requests - and plaintiff's resistance - continued, the Defendant undertook a course of retaliatory conduct, which culminated in the termination of Plaintiff's employment" on Nov. 12, 2007.
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