In the absence of truth, power is the only game in town.
Richard John Neuhaus
Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.
Napoleon Hill
The image which heads this blog article is the screen capture from a Google™ Image search of PGS #Pedersen. By any standard, leadership entrusted with advancing the company, as well as its directors and management’s, reputation would not allow being associated with such imagery and accusations. Therefore, any settlement contract that is intended to end an employment relationship on fair, equitable and reasonable terms, yet allows the employer and its agents open to such public ridicule and criticism would not seem to accomplish its intended objectives. In fact, the outcome of this settlement has apparently left Norwegian marine seismic service company, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) and its UK affiliate, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited (PGSUK), agents impotent in constructively resolving such an online tirade. The PGS/PGSUK legal compliance lawyer, Rune Olav Pedersen (PGS #Pedersen) is responsible for this contract and all of the online postings which it has inspired. PGS #Pedersen was the principal agent who oversaw the resolution of a grievance addressing workplace bullying/mobbing, harassment, defamation, as well as a litany of other indiscretions, mostly regarding the abuse of position. Agents were allowed to not abide by UK laws and PGS policy. The grievance concentrated on acts perpetrated by three (3) PGSUK executives, Simon Cather (PGS #Cather), PGS Marine Contract President – Africa, Edward von Abendorff (PGS #Abendorff), VP Marine Contract Sales – Africa, and David Nicholson (PGS #Nicholson), Human Resource (HR) Manager EAME.
PGS #Pedersen is but one of the alleged PGS/PGSUK criminal and corrupt agents who participated in gang violence intended to protect liars and cheaters and silence my voice. He along with his co-conspirators have been accused, although none have formally retorted or denied these published accusations. My publications became necessary when PGS/PGSUK corrupt executives, the board, and compliance team did not do what their legal agency requires. Their objective has not been legal compliance, but rather covering-up illegal executive behaviors. PGS/PGSUK agents have either lied or ignored my queries. The accused were allowed to not investigate – or rather, produce a fabricated investigation which was withheld from me to exonerate themselves. I believe that the settlement contract proffered to me by PGSUK was not legal. How is it possible to illegally create and process a false narrative supported by false instruments, misrepresentations, and the withholding and destruction of key data/information to affect a legal agreement? How is it legal for any agent, my own nor any agent of PGSUK, to accept and process such false instruments, misrepresentations, and the withholding and destruction of key data/information on my behalf? Common sense would tell most that any such agreement is obviously compromised. But, that is before the corrupted power of misappropriated PGS resources and money enters into the equation. When this happens, no legal or compliant outcome is possible. PGS #Pedersen oversaw the workplace violence and plunder of a whistle blower,
It was PGS #Pedersen who allowed my legal right to file a grievance be obstructed (perverting the course of justice), false documents stating a false narrative to be created and processed (fraud and forgery), and finally withheld a medical recommendation which denied me a medical check-up that may have confirmed that their acts of bullying and harassment were in fact health harming (assault?). PGS #Pedersen did all this while advancing a settlement contract with the specific intent of allowing PGS executives to escape justice and accountability. The formation of such an agreement required a lot of shenanigans on the part of PGS agents. Such a conspiracy and confidence fraud required enlisting a long-term customer and third- party agent, Rhodri Thomas, of legal firm Watson, Farley and Williams, to not carry out normal due diligence and to tell one narrative to the UK Border Agency on the one hand, while telling another juxtaposed narrative to forward an illegal settlement on the other. My (compromised) legal counsel and agent, Philip Landau and Holly Rushton also allowed false instruments and false data to be advanced and processed. This simply is not legal. They were acting as double-agents. Therefore, based on these facts, as well as my former counsel’s lack of support in rectifying such issues and the many queries raised, I was only left to wonder. How much did PGS agents pay you, Philip Landau? None of these “professional lawyers” answer my questions or have retained and provided substantive documentation of the negotiation processes they were clandestinely involved in. More revealing, no lawyer involved has taken any legal action to stop my publications that accuse them of criminal behavior. Their solution is to have me blocked on social media! That’s the only option that their legal training has allowed them? (It is as if the truth might put them in jail!)
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
John Steinbeck
You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.
William Shakespear, The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1
When people think of rape, they think it as a sexual crime. However, studies have shown over and over again that rape is a crime of power. The legal definition of rape is the unlawful sexual intercourse with a person against their will. The essential elements of the crime of rape are sexual penetration, force, and lack of consent of the other person. However, a broader dictionary definition of rape is to plunder or violently seize or steal from another. By this definition, rape is also not only about sex, but even more so about power. Within this more extensive definition of rape, there is the power dynamic of control and dominance at its core. The violent sex act becomes the projection and outcome from the abuse of power, whereby something is violently taken-away without the consent of the target. Beverly McPhail of the University of Houston asserts that rape “occurs due to multiple motives rather than the single motivation. These multiple motivations include, but are not limited to, sexual gratification, revenge, recreation, power/control, and attempts to achieve or perform masculinity.” Such dominance is demonstrated within heterosexual prison inmate populations. In prisons, inmates are held within sexually unnatural, repressive, and humiliating environments. Inmates resort to a system of (masculine) dominance over the weaker inmates that includes sexual rape.
All forms of workplace harassment are about the abuse of power and authority. Harassment involves intentionally targeting someone associated with a protected group with behavior that is meant to alarm, annoy, torment or terrorize them. Hierarchical authoritative power is too often demonstrated through corrupt and abusive social and political dominance. Workplace bullying is demonstrated through such behaviors targeting individuals outside a protected group. Workplace mobbing is bullying of an individual by a group. Workplace mobbing is emotional abuse that involves “ganging up” by co-workers, subordinates or superiors, to force someone out of the workplace through rumor, innuendo, intimidation, humiliation, discrediting, and isolation. Workplace mobbing is also referred to as malicious, nonsexual, nonracial, general harassment. Perpetrators of workplace violence or rape rely on the same corrupted power structures that support, and too often promote, all forms of workplace violence. One of the most severe ramifications of abused power is the loss of control and disempowerment which the targets of such abhorrent behaviors experience. More to the point, the legal protections that are supposed to be afforded to targets of violence are denied through the intentional abuse and perversion of illegally sanctioned authoritative agency power, such as PGS #Pedersen allowing non-compliant and illegal acts be carried-out as a PGS agent for legal compliance.
There is something very understandable about gang violence. The fact is that people are more likely to do something if they think they can get away with it. Large numbers provide some statistical likelihood of not getting caught. However, more importantly, within the workplace, it is the concentration of power and misused agency authority to preserve such corrupted power which makes justice so difficult to realize for targets of abuse. When internal governance and compliance do not fulfill their legal agency responsibilities, organizations become lawless. Non-compliant behavior is too often rewarded directly or indirectly through favoring those who look the other way from witnessing bad behavior. These bystanders and witnesses of bad behavior who remain silent accommodate all corruption. Too often HR is used as a conduit to pay “bribes” and to reward people for their complicity. Money can also be laundered and funneled for seemingly benign bonuses or promotions. Power and money with no third-party oversight is simply a formula for rampant corruption, which is seen too often these days within every industry. Harassment and bullying are epidemic, yet justice for such abrogation of civility and workplace policy is rarely realized. Internal governance is a façade that the corrupt create and misuse for self-preservation of power. Corrupt corporate agents only need to publish core values or responsibility reports.
Authoritative power can decide which scandals are investigated and punished. Authoritative power can also allow themselves to misuse shareholder value to do it. When a report was made to UK Action Fraud, PGS/PGSUK voiced no concern about allegations made against executives. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who administer over compliance to the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) have no authentication process and therefore data controllers, such as PGSUK can lie with impunity. (And they have, thus far.) Accusing Terje Bjøseth (PGS #Bjolseth), PGS SVP HR and Per Arild Reksnes (PGS #Reksnes), then PGS EVP Marine Contract, and PGS #Cather of forging a memo stating my acceptance of a false narrative does not warrant concern as it is regarded as an “employment issue.” Even though a person’s employment represents to them a significant amount of money and such fraud is in fact stealing that money, enterprise agent’s access to money and resources to stave off accountability is never in short supply! PGS #Pedersen and his accomplice within “compliance” are automatically trusted because of their hierarchical authority and the money and resources that it controls. It has nothing to do with truth or legal compliance. The likelihood of getting away with a crime is also greatly enhanced with a gang of complicit co-conspirators hiding from the truth. When corrupt power wants to suppress the truth, it is made easy for them. The truth is that shareholders and customers actually finance the deceit of misused resources through apathy. Therefore, the solution for creating workplaces free from health-harming and performance hindering harassment and bullying is for all stakeholders: customers, investors, and competitors, to demand proof of legal compliance and not just hollow statements. Toxic workplaces cannot be cured through weak and dysfunctional enterprise governance.
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Elie Wiesel
When policemen break the law, then there isn’t any law – just a fight for survival.
Billy Jack character (Billy Jack, 1971)
When the principal enterprise/corporate agents entrusted with the role of legal and policy compliance are themselves entwined in the illegal and corrupt behavior that they are appointed to govern, it is impossible for any outcome to be legal and compliant. Nowhere is such a workplace culture of harassment and violent mobbing behavior more manifest than within Norwegian marine seismic service company Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS). My former employer. And newly appointed PGS CEO, PGS #Pedersen, is an integral proponent of this toxic culture where corrupt acts by board members and executives are financed by their deceived stakeholders and customers. What the deafening PGS board and executive silence around such allegations makes clear is their very direct involvement at every level in conspiring to carry-out an intentional and organized cover-up. PGS #Pedersen is placed front and center in both carrying-out and covering-up these nefarious activities. Because of PGS #Pedersen’s direct involvement, it is also no surprise that he has now become the CEO. He is in place to shield the depth of PGS corruption. No credible or honest person would accept this role and not feel compelled to reveal the truth behind such allegations. In fact, it is the responsibility of key executives and the board of directors to uphold PGS and their own reputations in the eyes of stakeholders. Ignoring and remaining silent in addressing such allegations is unprofessional, irresponsible, mean, and corrupt.
There is legal non-compliance to be uncovered, if only an honest investigation were carried-out. Workplace bullying is referred to as the hidden epidemic. Workplace bullying and harassment top the list of workplace hazards. Such workplace violence is corruption by almost any reasonable definition. It is the first tool of corrupt management to rid the workplace of whistle blowers, complainers, and even threatening talent. Human Resources departments become weaponized to rid employees that threaten corrupt management. HR departments also become a money laundering operations that pay out rewards to the incompetent and pliant employees who support the corruption. HR departments are the avenue used to pay off the settlements that protect perpetrators of violence. Payrolls are used as bribes to coerce others to support the corrupt and perform duties which are against the law or transgress workplace policies and procedures. Targets of the corrupt, violent, and health-harming effects of workplace bullying seldom find justice. Much of this is because the concept of corporate governance is too often utter idiocy in practice. Corrupt organizations simply do not adhere to their own corporate governance protocols. Isn’t that what corruption is? Corrupt executives are allowed to maneuver and manipulate processes to protect themselves from any deserved legal or civil liability because corrupt executives allow themselves this non-agency authority to rig the system to their favor through bypassing local laws and company policies.
For over two-years I have been exposing PGS board and executive corruption and hypocrisy to which PGS #Pedersen has played a principal role. I have tried to use the legitimate company processes for redress. There have been lies, threats, but mostly silence in response to my phone calls and emails to compliance team members. When a group of adults are allowed to conspire, coordinate, and engage in workplace mobbing, involving fraud, with the explicit intent of harming and robbing targets of their professional livelihood and reputation, it should resonate with all stakeholders. Such violent plunder and theft is intended to harm and destroy the targets of abuse while protecting the rapists. It is the most evil and despicable kind of corruption. Stakeholders need to understand that corruption impacts the reputation and performance of all professionals and the markets that employ them. I implore all stakeholders and decent people to demand that PGS #Pedersen, board, and executive chronicle and explain how their decisions and actions followed legal compliance and policy. PGS #Pedersen was obliged to uphold legal compliance under his agency for PGS. The fact that he did not carry out his legal duties also implies very clearly that he is corrupt beyond measure. I am an enemy of the corrupt board and management because I wanted them to follow the rules, policies and the law (of Norway and England). I am an enemy of the corrupt board and management because they have misused company resources, diminished the profession, and deceived customers. They have sanctioned all this to harm me and my family. No agent from PGS/PGSUK has publicly challenged my truthful narrative. (They dare not expose themselves to rational dialogue.) I need the help from stakeholders who care about a fair and level playing field offering the best products and services to step up and challenge corruption. Challenge corruption, deception, and make the industry more safe and fair by not doing business with opaque organizations who cannot demonstrate their core values or responsible behavior. This is the plea of all victims of crime: Justice.
Fighting corruption is not just good governance. It’s self-defense. It’s patriotism.
Joe Biden
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
Joseph Addison