Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.
~ Sam Houston
Well when you’re down on your luck and you ain’t got a buck in London you’re a goner.
~ Gary P. Nunn, London Homesick Blues
I lived and worked in Weybridge, England with my wife and two children from 26 September 2010 until 24 December 2013. I am a USA citizen and was sponsored to work with PGS Exploration (UK) Limited, 4 The Heights, Brooklands, Weybridge, KT13 0NY (PGSUK), on a Tier 2 visa. I left Weybridge and my employment after being gang-bullied. I am now certain that I was also a target in a confidence fraud game involving my former employer, their contracted legal firm, as well the legal advisor whom I engaged. My Weybridge story is about a foreign worker who blew the whistle on executive non-compliance and corruption. I mostly wanted the harassment and bullying to end. At its core, this is a story about lies and betrayal in the workplace. It is a tragic tale about how easily co-workers will support, directly and indirectly, those with corrupt authoritative power. The herein mentioned professionals are trained and experienced and knew full well that their actions were evil, non-compliant, and illegal. Yet, certain employees were allowed to make the collective decision to bypass their company policies and national laws to aid and abet in crimes against a former colleague. These individuals conspired to carry out actions that they knew would cause me, and also my family, physical, psychological, financial, and professional damage. They decided to solve the executive corruption problem through bribes, forgeries, and fraud. They have continued to pervert the course of justice through silence. A self-entitled corporate executive class has positioned themselves above the law. They spend other people’s money to protect and promote agents in their syndicate from responsibility. This must stop and there needs to be a police investigation, accountability, and justice. Weybridge, and surrounding communities, benefit when all know that no one is above the law.
The first lesson that targets of bullying (and gang-bullying) need to understand is that the human resources (HR) entity within organizations which publishes and distributes company policies and procedures is part of the enterprise hierarchical power structure and not above it. In other words, if there is corruption and non-compliance, HR is usually an enabler because of their placement and authoritative power within the organization hierarchy. It is part of the calculus which toxic management understands. This is why too often targets of bullying find no relief, and often bring more harm to themselves, if they complain about harassment and bullying through HR. HR is weaponized to protect those in the upper echelons of an organization and not to police them. In well managed and compliant organizations, HR will follow policy and behave compliantly because top management demands it. However, harassment and bullying generally do not proliferate within well-managed and compliant organizations. Further, there is a substantive argument that harassment and bullying are corrupt behaviors in of themselves which negatively impact most every aspect of enterprise performance. Beyond this, workplace bullying and harassment is often antecedent to more consequential corruption. Because the misuse of the HR function is essentially sanctioned, targets of abuse can be robbed of income and then maligned in their industry without resources to fight back against such repugnant practices carried out in corrupt organizations. Justice can only really come from outside the power structure.
Also, one must understand that when they identify workplace bullies or bullying, they are also implicating weakness in the management practices and power structure. Enterprise culture permeates from the top-down. The company directors and top management are ultimately responsible for ensuring legal compliance within the work place. Directors must take reasonable care to support the health and safety of employees and workplace bullying and harassment are identified as significant workplace hazards. Directors can be held responsible for data protection breaches, defamation, libel and providing misleading information. The company secretary shares additional responsibilities with the directors (UK Companies Act 2006). If a secretary fails to ensure that the directors are acting properly in the conduct of the business, they could be held personally responsible. Further, the company secretary can also be subject to criminal proceedings if company funds are misappropriated. PGSUK is an affiliate of Norwegian based Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS). The directors of PGSUK are executives of PGS who reside in Norway. The PGSUK secretaries are UK residents. Understanding the authoritative power structure in an organization is beneficial when confronting bullying and harassment in the workplace.
Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it’s set a rolling it must increase. Charles
~ Caleb Colton
The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.
~ Stanley Milgram
My employment with PGSUK terminated upon my signing a settlement agreement contract. Such a settlement agreement contract is a legal instrument supported by HR records. Settlement agreement contracts are very binding and require those offered such contracts to enlist legal advisors. However, in October 2014, months after having left England, citing the UK Data Protection Act 1998 (SAR), I submitted a subject access request (SAR) to my former employer, PGSUK. What I discovered was that false instruments supporting a false narrative resided within my personnel file. These were not disagreements of opinion, but documents citing events that never occurred and excluding events which did. This is a DPA violation. I was told that the PGSUK data processors (in HR) who were: David Nicholson, PGSUK HR Manager; Laura Haswell, PGSUK HR Staff; Anne Stokle, PGSUK HR Staff; Gareth Jones, HR Staff and Simon Cather, Marine Contract President – Africa. Nicholson was resolute about retaining these knowingly false – inaccurate – records and to continue processing them and even sent me a threatening letter telling me to stop my interrogatory.
I also went round-and-round with the Information Commissioner’s Office staff who oversee DPA compliance sharing with them e-mail evidence proving the PGSUK records being processed were false and inaccurate. The problem was the fact that I separated with a settlement agreement contract which was approved by a legal advisor who should have recognized that the instruments being processed were bogus and inaccurate. At the time, I did not really understand the depth and cooperation of the conspiracy behind my termination. I had thought that a spiteful HR manager, David Nicholson, had created these records after my termination. However, the dates indicated that this data was processed in forming my settlement agreement contract. The other error I made was that I did not think one’s legal advisor influenced the data being processed so much. But, in fact, their role is pivotal. Therefore, my legal advisor had to have been complicit in both creating the false instruments and processing them to affect the terms of the settlement contract. Because of this, ICO could not challenge the records or investigate PGSUK. However, this impediment toward truth and justice did not change the fact that the records were illegal. I had lived the truth and was not going to concede it to corrupt people and practices.
Arriving to the realization that several corrupt and corrupted individuals were involved in executing my settlement agreement contract supported by knowingly non-compliant illegal records in many ways clarified past events. I did not arrive to my current understanding of events quickly. I have ventured in one-step at a time. I have been publicly exposing PGS/PGSUK corruption since my blog post on LinkedIn™, 3 July 2015, An American, the UK Data Protection Act, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) and the Tyranny of “Accurate Data” (3-Jul-2015). In the 20 September 2015, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) CEO Jon Erik Reinhardsen Should Resign 2 (20-Sep-2015), evidence is shared to show that the contents held within my personnel file is not accurate. On 24 May 2016 I published, The Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) Ambush Meeting and the Definition of Fraud (24-May-2016), following my contact with PGS compliance hotline, Rune Olav Pedersen, PGS General Counsel and Terje Bjølseth, SVP HR. My request has been simple: authenticate the records held within my personnel file. Similarly, I recently published correspondence between myself and my legal advisor (team), Philip Landau and Holly Rushton, in the blog post, The Crimes of @PhilipLandau #London #EmploymentLaw #Solicitor and Petroleum Geo-Services #PGS #CEO #Pedersen (30-Dec-2017). Landau and Rushton, my legal advisors, will not explain how forged documents were used to process the settlement contract agreement which they advised on. It is clear that there is a conspiracy and cover-up here. Links to additional blog articles can be reached at, [http://nopgs.com/nopgs-blog/ was stolen and illegally destroyed through PGS ASA sponsored litigation in Thailand, December 2018. Content moved/re-published to marineseismicsurvey.com].
If you prosecute a CEO or other senior executive and send him or her to jail for committing a crime, the deterrent effect in my view vastly outweighs even the best compliance program you can put in place.
~ Jed S. Rakoff
Psychopaths are social predators, and like all predators, they are looking for feeding grounds. Wherever you get power, prestige and money, you will find them.
~ Robert D. Hare
Through the period of writing my blog articles responses (silence) from those whom I have exposed have been gauged. During this time, I have developed a better understanding of what took place. I know that the final outcome was illegal (forged documents). Therefore, stepping back and rethinking the events which preceded the settlement contract agreement being proffered in the first place needs to be explored. The reason that the outcome needed to be illegally altered must be a product of why the settlement agreement contract was proffered in the first place. I had submitted a formal workplace grievance implicating three principals, my boss, Edward von Abendorff, VP Contract Sales – Africa, his boss, Simon Cather, President Marine Contract – Africa, and David Nicholson, HR Manager, in non-compliant workplace practices that transgressed PGSUK policy and UK employment law. These actions included defamatory – untrue and harmful – statements and documents intended to impugn and damage me professionally and personally. Central to this grievance was the abuse of position and misuse of the internal performance management system to demote and terminate me from employment.
My grievance was researched and confronted these false claims which aligned to tactics used in workplace gang-bullying. My grievance cited events and data from the work group, referenced PGSUK policy handbook, UK employment law, and literature to demonstrate that I was being harassed and bullied in the workplace. I believed that PGSUK was in breach of contract in PGSUKs duty of care responsibility in creating a hostile and health-harming workplace environment (health and safety), as well as breach of trust and confidence because principals were departing from policy on multiple levels. The submission of a formal grievance was prompted by two key events. The first event was an ambush meeting. Following this meeting, I requested minutes of the meeting, how the meeting aligned with policy, and informed Nicholson that I wanted to file a grievance. I was denied all of these requests. I needed something in writing. Eventually, Nicholson prepared a letter which covered main points of the ambush meeting. However, instead of responding to me initial queries, Nicholson added a subject line, Investigation into possible implementation of a performance improvement plan (PIP).
Within the ambush letter, a meeting to discuss the highlighted points was scheduled for 11 September 2013. This is a very important date in the chain of events leading to my eventual termination from employment. Mainly, it is important to note that the 11 September 2013 meeting never occurred. It was rescheduled for 20 September 2013. Also important to note is that the majority of actions and behaviors referenced within my formal grievance predated 11 September 2013. The ambush meeting happened in June 2013, and the ambush letter was delivered in July. In between those two dates, PGSUK had submitted documentation to renew my Tier 2 visa. This is another key point. Both the ambush meeting and ambush letter presented defamatory and denigrating content impugning my job performance. Essentially, I was being told that I was incompetent. However, these sentiments were not presented to UK Border Agency, an official UK government agency which issued my Tier 2 visa based on the professional shortage occupation list requested by PGSUK so that I could continue working in Weybridge. This is why I noted that Candida Pinto resigned as PGSUK secretary 13 September 2013 and Carl Richards, PGSUK Head of Legal took over in that role. So, who would be responsible for the PGSUK actions pre-dating 13 September 2013 in terms of complying with PGSUK policy and UK law? I never received any content regarding an investigation into implementing a PIP. I responded to this ambush letter in the form of my written grievance, 20 September 2013. However, lying to UK Border Agency as a means to employ someone on false pretenses is not appropriate and can be illegal.
Most of the evil of the world comes about not out of evil motives, but somebody saying ‘get with the program, be a team player;’ this is what we saw at Enron, this is what we saw in the Nixon administration with their scandal.
~ Philip Zimbardo
Good manners are cost effective. They not only increase the quality of life in the workplace, they contribute to employee morale, embellish the company image, and play a major role in generating profit.
~ Letitia Baldrige
The objective of gang-bullying is to oust the target from employment. Had I endured such workplace conditions in the USA, I likely would have quit and moved on sooner and not raised a grievance. The grievance cited my nationality as factor elevating the abusive workplace bullying behaviors to be harassment. My family was in a foreign country on visas sponsored by PGSUK so that I could work in their offices. It would not have been easy or cheap – or even legal – to just quit and leave. I was working on an employment contract. All parties had invested a lot for my family to be living in Weybridge. My Thai wife did not really like Weybridge weather, but did enjoy trips into London and also found a spiritual community at the Thai Buddhist temple in Wimbledon. Our family would take trips to Wimbledon several weekends while living in England. My children attended Manby Lodge and then moved to Saint James C of E primary school. The teachers and administration were professional, attentive and caring to our daughters. I was very grateful of this. We all enjoyed taking the train and seeing the sites in England that we journeyed to from Weybridge. So, my children especially have fond memories of our time living in Weybridge. I want to make it clear that it was a few bad apples within my workplace which displaced my fonder memories of living in England. Unfortunately, however, it was not only PGSUK professionals who behaved corruptly. PGSUK influence through misappropriated resources and lies infected others, as well.
On 20 September 2013, I delivered my formal grievance personally and through e-mail. The attendees of that meeting were me, my requested co-worker witness, John Barnard, Abendorff, and the meeting host, Nicholson. These individuals also were sent a copy by e-mail, as were Cather, his boss, Per Arild Reksnes, EVP Marine Contract; Terje Bjøseth, SVP HR, who Nicholson reported to, and John Greenway, SVP Marine Contract. Greenway often attended our groups planning and strategy meetings via phone conference from Lysaker, Norway and so I thought his impression and comments would be important and useful. Barnard had been privy to the several e-mails regarding the original 11 September 2013 meeting and rescheduling, as well. Barnard was the only one beyond me, and the principal three cited in the grievance, that was in the loop. I recall Abendorff’s surprise when he first read the grievance and learned that Nicholson and Cather were also named. I think that the three had prepared for me to complain about only Abendorff. This would have allowed them to contain and control things even easier. Now, Norway executives were brought into the resolving the matter.
A grievance hearing meeting was scheduled for 14 October 2014, a Monday. On 10 October 2014, Nicholson called me down to his office and offered me a settlement contract agreement to end my employment with PGSUK and forego the grievance hearing. I rejected the offer. However, I was made aware that I would require a legal advisor if I did accept a settlement agreement offer to end my employment. I was reading and came upon an article by Philip Landau and completed an online query prior to 14 October 2014. I have written about my initial encounter with Landau within the recent blog article, The Crimes of @PhilipLandau #London #EmploymentLaw #Solicitor and Petroleum Geo-Services #PGS #CEO #Pedersen (30-Dec-2017). Within this article e-mail communications between Landau and his associate, Holly Rushton, and I are shared to show that Landau had been provided with accurate information that contradicts the contents held within my personnel file. Therefore, I have concluded that Landau and Rushton were not my advocates, but rather were compromised and knowingly forwarded forged documents to advance an illegal settlement contract agreement. This settlement contract benefited the corrupt interests of the named bullies, as well as the directors/secretary of PGSUK. These actions allowed corrupt PGSUK agents to escape accountability for overseeing a health harming workplace and breaching several PGSUK policies and even UK employment laws. Further, PGSUK also enlisted the services of Watson, Farley, & Williams, employment solicitor, Rhodri Thomas, to help facilitate this confidence fraud.
The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.
~ Hannah Arendt
In any society, fanatics who hate don’t hate only me – they hate you, too. They hate everybody.
~ Elie Wiesel
The creation and processing of forged / false instruments required that usual steps of due diligence and prescribed processing procedures were intentionally neglected. None of the relevant documents were countersigned by me. Many were not signed at all. None of the relevant documents were signed by my boss, Abendorff. There were no supporting documents to back-up the content. Mostly, it seems they were authored by Nicholson. These documents would probably not reach a legal standard for use in a court of law, which is the standard for HR records. Stokle had arranged the appointments between me and the occupational health nurse, which happened while the negotiations were underway. However, the generated final report was kept from me and was also not preserved within my personnel files. Haswell and Jones were discussing moving arrangements for me to move back to the USA while the negotiations were in progress. Similarly, Thomas, of Watson, Farley and Williams, did not check with individual’s who had processed my Tier 2 visa and note the performance based settlement did not coincide with a SOL Tier 2 visa requirement. Landau and Rushton did not even address my many queries on these topics. Everyone except me was seasoned and knowledgeable of the legal standards for legitimate personnel actions, but they instead followed the criminal lead. And this is why I was their target in the confidence fraud game.
Substantial weight is placed on my signing the settlement agreement contract. However, my signing the settlement agreement is a product of multiple misrepresentations and the withholding of information. There was a calculated effort to defraud me that all of the fore mentioned legal and HR “professionals” fully understood. Further, my assignment was in contract sales, and so those above me in the hierarchy understood the law of contract. Everyone who was directly involved in my ordeal knew exactly what they were doing was immoral and illegal. Now, they all have a vested interest in maintaining the false narrative. In one of my more recent blog articles, Petroleum Geo-Services #PGS #CEO #Pedersen and the Management of Gang Rape (28-Oct-2017), I liken these events to being the victim of gang-violence, where the guilt of everyone is known, but the rapists cooperate to keep the truth hidden. The impact of workplace mobbing on targets is documented to be devastating on multiple levels. The health harming aspects of workplace bullying was a point emphasized within my grievance document, which by the way, is also not preserved within my personnel record file. This is without the extra seasoning of crimes perpetrated on a target already dealing with living in a foreign country. What PGSUK/PGS corrupt agents have done is not inconsequential. The silence hides the seriousness of their crimes. What PGS/PGSUK constructed was a completely false claim to replace a more serious claim where directors and executives would be held accountable. Since my termination, many of the key actors have been promoted. No negative repercussions, beyond my blog post articles, for their robbery and assault of me and my family.
In a legal organization, thorough investigations would be carried out to determine if best practices, internal policies, and local laws were adhered to in forming a conclusion. At PGS/PGSUK no investigations and bogus conclusions are composed to form a false narrative. In a legal organization employees who departed from such practices demanded in their professional capacities would be reprimanded and possibly disciplined. Many of the described corrupt actions could warrant summary dismissal. That is not how things work at PGS/PGSUK. Within this organization, such violations are rewarded. Be a crooked general counsel lawyer overseeing legal compliance and screw up a simple settlement contract agreement and one can expect to become CEO! Others may be lauded within the Company’s responsibility report. Others will receive promotions and likely stellar recommendations so they may further their careers. Honest whistle blowers will have their careers halted and be blacklisted robbing them of income and opportunity. This is not the way it is supposed to work. Maybe many in the communities around Weybridge are capable and looking for an opportunity in an HR, legal, geo-science or IT field. However, the position they seek is filled by a criminal! Help me in demanding a full external investigation of PGSUK. It will improve the neighborhood. If you are or know a legal advisor who can remedy this situation, please e-mail: [email protected] .
Cruelty is all out of ignorance. If you knew what was in store for you, you wouldn’t hurt anybody, because whatever you do comes back much more forceful than you send it out.
~ Willie Nelson
“Truth” in Texas is topic sensitive. If you’re doing a business deal, a true Texan always stands by his word. There is nothing more sacred to Texans than their word, and they will do anything in their power to meet their obligations. But when it comes to tellin’ stories, the whole truth thing blurs quite a bit.
~ Jim Gramon
