Penguin Canada rehires woman at centre of sexual-harassment lawsuit

Penguin Canada has rehired publishing executive Lisa Rundle, who had launched a sexual-harassment suit against its former Indian origin CEO David Davidar.

Not only will Rundle resume her job as director of rights and contracts for Penguin Canada, she will also have the satisfaction of reporting to a new boss the company appointed Wednesday to replace Davidar.

“The general feeling inside the organization was that would be both a good thing to do commercially and a very decent thing to do ethically,” Penguin Group chairman John Makinson told The Globe and Mail in a telephone interview from London, praising Rundle as “a very good rights director.”

“She wanted to continue to work in the industry and Penguin was the obvious place for her to work,” Makinson added.

“And we had settled all our differences with her as part of the general release of liabilities that was agreed to yesterday,” he added.

Until then, Rundle had been suing both Penguin and Davidar for 523,000 dollars, alleging that the company fired her after she complained about Davidar’s persistent unwanted advances.

The lawsuit emerged in the immediate aftermath of Penguin’s announcement that Davidar was leaving the company for personal reasons.

Meanwhile, Penguin Canada has appointed long-time company executive Mike Bryan as new president in place of Davidar. Bryan was previously president of Penguin India.

Bryan has been with the company since 1980 and is well respected in publishing circles.