I did say the accusation of DAMAGES was bullshit. Judging by the fact that Air Canada got $0 of the $220 million they were looking for, I'd say I was correct. They settled on litigation fees which is not damages. The accusation of espionage itself I never denied. You also mention "criminal involvement". Is that why this lawsuit was filed in a CIVIL court and criminal charges were never pursued?Canada Eh
You also said the accusations were bullshit and would be proven in court.
Clive and company have already tarnished Westjets reputation, and have lied to the public, and employees about criminal involvement. I am surprised with your attitude after the fact. It also reflects poorly on your collegues and company while speaking volumes of the true culture.
This is a sad day.
WESTJET GUILTY
Moderators: Sulako, lilfssister, North Shore, sky's the limit, sepia, I WAS Birddog
Highly unlikely they will be attending the same garden parties....tonysoprano wrote:I wonder if this means Clive and Milty are freinds now??? Or maybe it's the prelude to a merger???
No to the merger. There is already enough internal hatred at AC between the Blue/Red and the addition of green will make things even worse.
A duopoly is better for the travelling public than a monopoly any day. As long as both are financially viable, there is no need to merge.
Besides, you should be careful what you wish for. Remember, the guppy that was PWA swallowed the much larger CP Air! Air Canada will be a much smaller company (and less profitable) if it too is spun off from ACE.
Blastor wrote:As recently as November, Beddoe pronounced himself stunned by the news that Milton had topped a recent ranking of Canada's most capable executives. Said Beddoe at the time: "How do you bankrupt a monopoly and get named CEO of the year?"
Blastor forgot to highlight the best part....
WestJet apologizes to Air Canada for snooping-
Actions 'unacceptable': Hacked into rival's Web site to gain confidential data
Chris Sorensen, Financial Post Published: Tuesday, May 30, 2006
WestJet Airlines Ltd. has apologized to Air Canada and will pay $15.5-million to end a sometimes bizarre and often embarrassing corporate-espionage lawsuit that accused WestJet of hacking into an Air Canada employee Web site to obtain confidential information.
WestJet, which typically casts itself as the David to Air Canada's Goliath, admitted in a joint statement yesterday that its campaign of online snooping "was both unethical and unacceptable" and offered a rare apology to Air Canada and Robert Milton, the chief executive of parent ACE Aviation Holdings Inc.
WestJet also said the decision to glean data about its rival by using a former Air Canada employee's password to gain access to an Air Canada Web site hundreds of thousands of times "was undertaken with the knowledge and direction of the highest management levels of WestJet" and was not halted until Air Canada complained.
"This is a mea culpa," said Karl Moore, a business professor at McGill University, who has followed the lawsuit closely. "WestJet is falling on its sword here and Air Canada comes out smelling like roses."
In addition to paying $5.5-million to Air Canada for litigation and investigation costs, which included hiring private investigators to steal the trash of a former WestJet executive, WestJet has agreed to donate $10-million to children's charities in the names of both airlines. That is in exchange for having the legal proceedings against it dropped and Air Canada's claim of $220-million in damages withdrawn.
Mr. Moore added that WestJet's apparent about-face -- CEO Clive Beddoe had frequently downplayed the legitimacy of Air Canada's lawsuit -- suggests WestJet was eager to end the litigation at all costs, perhaps because the airline's lawyers were losing confidence in their case, or because the airline was worried that a protracted dispute would result in more negative headlines.
Both airlines declined to comment on the settlement or its terms. Sources familiar with the company said a settlement had been in the works for at least a month.
While WestJet never denied accessing Air Canada's employee Web site, its lawyers had tried to cast doubt on Air Canada's claims that the data obtained by WestJet was in fact confidential and whether possessing it actually gave WestJet an advantage over its rival.
WestJet had also attempted to distance key executives -- namely Mr. Beddoe -- from the scandal by arguing that its data mining activities were limited to a handful of WestJet employees, including Mark Hill, WestJet's co-founder and a former vice-president of strategic planning, who resigned in 2004.
Doug Reid, a professor at Queen's School of Business, said WestJet did the right thing by ending the lawsuit, but he questioned whether the directors should allow Mr. Beddoe to continue on as CEO. "The bluntness of the admission raises a lot of questions about leadership and appropriateness of behaviour either in a complicit sense or supervisory sense that the board cannot ignore."
While Mr. Beddoe's name wasn't mentioned in the joint statement issued yesterday, documents made public as part of the lawsuit showed he was copied on several e-mails that made cryptic references to a "007 project" and contained pages of data about Air Canada's traffic on certain routes.
There was also an e-mail exchange between Messrs. Hill and Beddoe that suggested WestJet was eager to use the data to sully the reputation of its larger rival -- particularly as Air Canada struggled to raise money after filing for bankruptcy protection in 2003. "With AC apparently in the short strokes obtaining financing, it sure would be fun to provide data from the 007 project to the media," Mr. Hill wrote to Mr. Beddoe in an e-mail dated Sept. 11, 2003. "AC would have some serious back tracking and explaining to do to potential investors and would further weaken their credibility in all quarters."
A WestJet spokeswoman confirmed no executives would be stepping down.
As for the financial impact on WestJet, David Newman, an analyst at National Bank Financial, said in a note to clients that the settlement's terms are roughly equal to a one-time charge of 7 cents to 12 cents a share compared with estimated annual legal costs of $1-million, or roughly 2 cents a share.
It remains to be seen, however, what the long-term impact will be on WestJet's much-vaunted corporate culture. "When the leader of a strong-culture organization admits wrongdoing -- it's devastating," said Marc-David Seidel, a professor at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business
Rebel, you metioned WJ putting a spin onb an otherwise bad situation.
What to you call Air Canada's qurterly report.
Why do they not come right out and say ACE made some good money, but Air Canada as an airline has once again failed and lost 82 million dolars.
If not for the constanr sell off of divisions and other interets we would be bankrupt again.
So who's putting the spins on? Everyone, it's business unfortunatly.
Please don't try to paint either Airline as the moral one. Neither is or ever has been.
What to you call Air Canada's qurterly report.
Why do they not come right out and say ACE made some good money, but Air Canada as an airline has once again failed and lost 82 million dolars.
If not for the constanr sell off of divisions and other interets we would be bankrupt again.
So who's putting the spins on? Everyone, it's business unfortunatly.
Please don't try to paint either Airline as the moral one. Neither is or ever has been.
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tonysoprano
- Rank 10
- Posts: 2589
- Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:01 pm
Hey gazu.
You obviously are taking me way too seriously. My comments were more of a sarcastic nature given such two opposites could ever unite. Canadian and AC had much more in common than WJ and AC have. WJ will have to do some growing up (in more ways than one) before any meaningful comparison or even a merger could be contemplated.
You obviously are taking me way too seriously. My comments were more of a sarcastic nature given such two opposites could ever unite. Canadian and AC had much more in common than WJ and AC have. WJ will have to do some growing up (in more ways than one) before any meaningful comparison or even a merger could be contemplated.
why merge ?? You guys are weird, but atleast we've all learned what happens when you do merge, right boy-ohs.. So, just let company A go tits up and buy the planes at dirt cheap rates.... Merger, lol, that's so 1990's....tonysoprano wrote:Hey gazu.
You obviously are taking me way too seriously. My comments were more of a sarcastic nature given such two opposites could ever unite. Canadian and AC had much more in common than WJ and AC have. WJ will have to do some growing up (in more ways than one) before any meaningful comparison or even a merger could be contemplated.
WestJet admits its execs spied on Air Canada
Pays $15.5 million to settle lawsuit. Calgary-based discount carrier used passwords to get data about rival's routes
TAMARA GIGNAC, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, May 30, 2006
WestJet Airlines settled a long-running corporate espionage lawsuit with Air Canada yesterday, admitting that senior executives spearheaded a cybersnooping scheme to steal confidential information by tapping into its bigger rival's Internet site more than 250,000 times.
The Calgary-based discount carrier issued an apology to Air Canada and pledged to pay the airline $5.5 million in legal fees and donate $10 million to children's charities.
The agreement ends an embarrassingly trail of intrigue that has haunted WestJet since 2004, when allegations surfaced that the airline used secret passwords belonging to a former Air Canada employee to retrieve commercially sensitive data about Air Canada's most profitable routes.
"This practice was undertaken with the knowledge and direction of the highest management levels of WestJet and was not halted until discovered by Air Canada," the two airlines said in a joint statement. "(It) was both unethical and unacceptable and WestJet accepts full responsibility for such misconduct."
WestJet chief executive Clive Beddoe and four other top bosses were identified in a $220-million lawsuit, initially filed in April 2004 by Air Canada, now a unit of ACE Aviation Holdings Inc.
The discount carrier had previously argued that it did not break the law in collecting data about it rival, and countered with accusations that Air Canada hired private investigators to root through the garbage of one of its founders.
News of the settlement pushed WestJet stock up 55 cents -- or five per cent -- to $11.63 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, while ACE Aviation shares rose 20 cents to $32.73.
One of WestJet's biggest strengths over its rival, observers say, is a strong employee culture that has existed at the airline since in it took to the skies a decade ago.
In admitting to an ethical breach, the airline runs the risk of alienating its workforce.
"It wasn't just an apology on WestJet's part - it was a capitulation," said Doug Reid, a business professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.
"The question becomes, how do you hold employees to a high level of ethical expectations when management admits in public it failed on that count and cost investors $15 million?"
Good question...
WestJet admits spying on rival
How the upstart airline ended up paying $15.5M over an espionage caper with Air Canada
Lisa Schmidt, Calgary Herald Published: Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Jeffrey Lafond was just planning a vacation to Maui with his wife.
But when the WestJet Airlines Ltd. employee signed on to an internal Air Canada website, he set in motion what would become a no-holds-barred legal battle between Canada's two largest airlines over allegations of corporate espionage.
After two years of duking it out in the courts, Air Canada settled its $220-million lawsuit Monday, with Calgary-based WestJet apologizing for its actions and shelling out $5.5 million to its competitor for legal costs and another $10 million to charity.
The settlement marks the end of a very public fight between the two carriers, where charges and countercharges ranged from cyberspying to Dumpster diving, from shredded documents to smear tactics.
"The suit has long been a distraction for the management of WestJet and something that ran counter to the opinion most WestJet employees have of their own company. They see themselves as the Davids fighting Goliath -- Air Canada -- but this is a situation where they did something wrong," said Karl Moore, a management professor with McGill University in Montreal.
Doug Reid, an airline analyst and professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., went even further: "It's been a profound embarrassment for WestJet."
Lafond started searching for flights to Hawaii in the middle of March 2003. The financial analyst had joined WestJet a year earlier, following a five-year stint at Canadian Airlines that ended when the carrier was bought by Air Canada.
As part of his severance, he received two free trips a year, which could be booked through an Air Canada employee website.
At his work computer, he tapped his passcodes and searched seat availability on Vancouver-Honolulu and Calgary-Vancouver flights.
Realizing the information on Air Canada's bookings may be interesting, Lafond showed the website to Scott Butler, WestJet's director of strategic planning. He told Mark Hill, a vice-president and WestJet founder.
Hill and Butler asked for Lafond's Air Canada employee number and personal code. Lafond asked them for indemnity against potential legal liability.
"I asked for something to say that if anything, any action, is brought against me, that I'm supported by WestJet and Mark Hill," Lafond said in his cross-examination in June 2004.
Lafond has since returned to work with WestJet, after taking a paid leave of absence after the lawsuit naming him and Hill along with WestJet was first filed in April 2004. Hill resigned as WestJet's vice-president of strategic planning three months later.
From his home computer in Victoria, Hill started using Lafond's code to access the website. Each night, he spent about 90 minutes checking Air Canada's load factors -- the percentage of seats filled -- on different routes.
But the task was time-consuming, and Hill talked about the problem with fellow executive and founder Don Bell. He recommended a WestJet employee who could create an automated "screen scraper."
By September, a program was collecting data from the Air Canada website, sometimes hitting the site over a 1,000 times a day. Hill scanned the material, sometimes passing it on to other WestJet employees.
In its lawsuit, Air Canada claimed its rival used the information to plan its expansion. WestJet had maintained the information was not confidential and never used.
"As to the information, it was of limited value. It doesn't tell me anything about profitability," Hill told lawyers during his cross-examination.
"And, at the end of the day you know, frankly, it was an intellectual exercise by an information junkie, had very little use. . . . It was quite frankly a waste of time."
By the summer of 2003, Michael Rodyniuk was starting to get alarmed.
Since becoming marketing director with Zip, Air Canada's discount carrier designed to go head-to-head with WestJet, Rodyniuk would often receive taunting e-mails from Hill.
But recent notes contained details about Air Canada's passenger loads that seemed far too specific to come from manual counts at airport gates.
Rodyniuk alerted his boss, CEO Steve Smith, but with little to go on, the suspicions weren't investigated.
It would take five more months and a whistle-blower from WestJet before Air Canada realized the full extent of the problem.
Near the end of the work day on Dec. 19, Smith's phone rang.
The caller only identified himself as a WestJet employee, but Smith saw a name on the call display and instructed Rodyniuk, who was in the office at the time, to write it down.
Concerned about what he says are unfair business practises, the caller described a screen shown to him by a superior. It appeared to display confidential information about Air Canada bookings.
The image, the caller says, had been forwarded by Mark Hill.
Smith called Air Canada corporate security to start looking for unauthorized access to the reservation system.
In early February, investigators report they have found an unusually high usage by employee ID No. 71558, Jeffrey Lafond. Over a 10-month period, the code has been used 243,630 times.
Air Canada officials decided not to shut down access to the site to avoid tipping off WestJet. But it doesn't take long for the information to filter back.
Around March 18, Rodyniuk met Hill for dinner in Calgary to see if he'll be considered for a top marketing post with WestJet.
"I do recall saying to Mark that I didn't know or want to know if WestJet or you were doing anything improper. But if he was, he shouldn't be doing it," he told lawyers.
At 3 a.m. on March 19, Lafond's passcode is used for the last time.
It's around 7:30 a.m. on March 22 when private investigator Jasper Smith pulled up at Hill's Victoria home. His assistant empties a garbage container and a recycling bin into their truck.
Any papers related to Air Canada are kept, while shredded documents are sent to a digital reconstruction expert in Houston.
A neighbour notices the strangers and reports the incident to Hill.
"When the two clowns lied to my neighbour that they were with the Oak Bay Municipality collecting garbage, it was pretty clear that those morons were going through my garbage," Hill said in a cross-examination in June 2004.
"I thought if Air Canada was interested in . . . looking at stuff, might as well put some stuff in for them to take a look at."
He typed out a list titled "WestJet's 2004 Business Plan."
Investigators return to Hill's home April 5 to collect more garbage, but this time Hill confronts them and takes photographs.
"At no point, while Mr. Hill was shouting at us and taking pictures, did he request that we stop what we were doing or ask that we leave the garbage behind," Jasper Smith says in an affidavit.
"In fact, the contents seem to have been intended for Air Canada."
Copies of a mock business plan have been cut into thick strips and are easy to piece together.
"Embarrass the crap out of Milty for authorizing such stupidity," was one entry. The plan concluded with, "Have a nice day, boys."
The following day, Air Canada filed its lawsuit.
Timeline
- April 6, 2004: Air Canada launches $5-million lawsuit against WestJet and two employees, Mark Hill and Jeffrey Lafond, alleging its competitor used information from a company website.
- July 14, 2004: Hill, one of Westjet's co-founders, resigns.
- July 22, 2004: Air Canada ups its claim to $220 million.
- Aug. 6, 2004: WestJet countersues for $5 million, alleging Air Canada obtained sensitive data when its investigators took shredded recycling materials from Hill's garbage.
- Oct 16, 2004: Jetsgo launches a $50-million lawsuit against WestJet alleging president Clive Beddoe and former executive Hill obtained confidential data.
- Nov. 5, 2004: Air Canada files a motion in Ontario's Superior Court to add Beddoe and four senior WestJet executives to its lawsuit.
- Dec. 15, 2004: WestJet launches a $30-million lawsuit against Air Canada and three top executives, claiming its competitor is abusing the court process in its legal action of corporate espionage.
- March 10, 2005: Jetsgo declares bankruptcy and WestJet lawsuit is dropped.
- May 25, 2005: Ontario Superior Court rules against WestJet's claim that Air Canada's corporate espionage case is an abuse of court process.
- May 29, 2006: WestJet apologizes to Air Canada for spying and agrees to pay $5.5 million in legal fees and contribute $10 million to children's charities.
-- Source: Herald Archive
Yes a good question, too bad that any idiot with a grade 2 education knows that at WJ, they're not only "employees" they're also "owners" so, funny how Mr. PhuD. forgot that....Blastor wrote:
"It wasn't just an apology on WestJet's part - it was a capitulation," said Doug Reid, a business professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.
"The question becomes, how do you hold employees to a high level of ethical expectations when management admits in public it failed on that count and cost investors $15 million?"
Good question...
Also, A/C was suing for 250 million in damages, so 250 million in sales thanks to un-ethical dealings and a 15 million dollar pay off, or no sales still stuck in YHM and still making peanuts but you're right, you'd have saved 15 million... Jesus they let any idiot get a degree now a days, and what's worse is that this clown is "teaching" the next generation of idiots.
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Frequent Flier_10
- Rank 1
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:14 pm
Blastor;
a. Your an idiot.
b. All your highlighted comments are from University professors. Think of the saying, 'Those that can, do, those that can't, teach'. All those guys know is theory, theory, theory, with no thought to the real world. Fact is capitalism is cut throat, if Air Canada is stupid enough to give former employees password's to see confidential data, even though they go to other airlines, shame on them. WestJet got caught, shame on them. My only concern now is how well aircanada.com protects my credit card information.......
c. From a shareholder point of view, WestJet will now save tonnes on legal fees that were being paid to lawyers, and instead will dole out some money to charities. The analysts will exclude the one-time charge for the settlement, and hence it won't impact the share price, while the savings from the legal costs are real, and hence you saw it drive the price up yesterday. As for the decline today -- small investors getting advice from a 'Toronto Star' business columnist I guess. The smart money is not selling -- look at the volume.
d. Finally, the real winners are airline employees at AC and WJ, as they both should now be able to get rid of a few lawyers........
a. Your an idiot.
b. All your highlighted comments are from University professors. Think of the saying, 'Those that can, do, those that can't, teach'. All those guys know is theory, theory, theory, with no thought to the real world. Fact is capitalism is cut throat, if Air Canada is stupid enough to give former employees password's to see confidential data, even though they go to other airlines, shame on them. WestJet got caught, shame on them. My only concern now is how well aircanada.com protects my credit card information.......
c. From a shareholder point of view, WestJet will now save tonnes on legal fees that were being paid to lawyers, and instead will dole out some money to charities. The analysts will exclude the one-time charge for the settlement, and hence it won't impact the share price, while the savings from the legal costs are real, and hence you saw it drive the price up yesterday. As for the decline today -- small investors getting advice from a 'Toronto Star' business columnist I guess. The smart money is not selling -- look at the volume.
d. Finally, the real winners are airline employees at AC and WJ, as they both should now be able to get rid of a few lawyers........
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tonysoprano
- Rank 10
- Posts: 2589
- Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:01 pm
The pride of WJ is its polished, happy, best-in-the-land mentality. WJ has been exposed. This latest incident has revealed the true side of the kind of ethics lurking in the company. If this company has any brains at all they will have learned something and change their way of doing business. I'm not sure the Canadian public has too much appetite for another oops from Clive. He's already established himself as a loud mouth know it all. They aught to put a muzzle on him.
No one cares about this... The albertans will ride local any day, and rather keep their "oil cheques" to themselves, then share with the rest of canada, so if they don't want to share their oil cash, you can guess how much they give a sh8t about air canada if WJ fucked them once or twice over....tonysoprano wrote:I'm not sure the Canadian public has too much appetite for another oops from Clive. He's already established himself as a loud mouth know it all. They aught to put a muzzle on him.
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tonysoprano
- Rank 10
- Posts: 2589
- Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:01 pm
The people from GTA will fly with whoever is cheaper, and the maritimers ride with CJ, BC has HMY....tonysoprano wrote:One province can't keep the airline running.
Sask, and Man, well they'll ride with Dust Devil.. =)
North American Culture, we don't care, maybe when they do go international, maybe the japanese, koreans and other asians wouldn't like the idea of espionage, and that clive didn't go harry karry, but by then this issue will have been forgotten... ?
Hmm I’m a native Albertan born bred and educated there and I can assure you that except for the Yahoo’s from the rest of the country that have come to AB for a better life we are not happy with the ethical and moral dilemma WJ has brought upon us. It definitely makes the rest of us look bad. There’s ways of conducting your business and then theirs ways of conducting your business and corporate espionage is not among them.
Oh I forgot to add we do have our share of rednecks. I suspect that you belong to that group. Pity you don’t know any better…forbes wrote:Rebel,
It would be a true honor to meet you, as I and i'm sure alot of "us" true Albertans have never met a 100% ethical or moral person. What is it like to be perfect?
