NHLPA Member Meeting — Ex-NHLPA employee fired by organization looks to sue them for $8.7 million over alleged fraud

Ex-NHLPA employee fired by organization looks to sue them for $8.7 million over alleged fraud

Modified Jul 26, 2023 16:41 GMT

In a court hearing today in Toronto, a former NHLPA employee claimed he was fired for speaking out about a coworker who was allegedly defrauding the union of more than $100,000.

Former technical support analyst Allan Etherington claims in an $8.7 million lawsuit brought against the NHLPA in Ontario Superior Court that the organisation covered up the fraud and fostered a hostile workplace before dismissing him in February 2019.

Etherington has further charged the union with insurance and income tax evasion. He sued the association in November 2019 and is requesting $8 million in total damages, $2.5 million in punitive penalties, as well as extra compensation for lost future earning potential and revenue.

According to the association, Etherington's complaint "contains bare, unfounded and irrelevant allegations, including of criminal and/or illegal conduct, and is scandalous and inflammatory". The association has refuted Etherington's claims.

Etherington claims that Stephen Frank, the NHLPA's former head of technology and security information technology, was granted permission to leave the organisation in December 2018 with the approval of the then-executive director Don Fehr.

According to Allan Etherington, Frank was fired when the union found via investigations by Ernst & Young and CGI Inc. that he had utilised his outside firm, GeekFork Inc., to steal money by purchasing pricey computer equipment.

Allan Etherington's NHLPA allegations further explained

According to Allan Etherington's statement of claim, on October 9, 2018, he and a colleague were resolving a print server issue when they came across an email thread between Frank and a Darktrace executive.

Darktrace is a U.K. cybersecurity business that signed a contract with the NHLPA in March 2018 to give the org access to a product that used artificial intelligence to help protect player information.

An affidavit signed on May 30 in Toronto by association attorney Roman Stoykewych is one of the new documents submitted to the court.

According to Stoykewych's report, he received a copy of emails exchanged between Frank and a Darktrace sales representative in the middle of October 2018.

Etherington said in his complaint that he had concerns about Frank's conduct at the beginning of 2018 and had spoken with the director of finance, Stephen Sax, about them.

The former employee asserts that throughout an internal inquiry into his actions, Frank continued to work at the NHLPA's headquarters and had full administrative access to worker emails via office computers.

Following his lawyer's notification to the organisation that he would be bringing a constructive dismissal claim, Etherington quit the union in February 2019.