It was announced on Tuesday by Textron Inc. that Siemens Corp.’s former general counsel is joining its company as the executive vice president and general counsel. The company is based in Providence, Rhode Island and operates across multiple industries.
Textron said that E. Robert Lupone will join the company beginning on January 31, 2012. Lupone worked as the senior vice president and general counsel for Siemens since 1999 and then worked as general counsel for the Americas for Siemens AG since 2008.
Scott Donnelly, the CEO of Textron, said Tuesday in a statement that Lupone is an excellent attorney with a track record that is also impressive.
“His leadership experience and legal expertise — which spans a diverse range of industries, countries and areas of law — will be a tremendous asset as Textron continues to grow and expand globally,” Donnelly said.
Terrence O’Donnell, a 12-year veteran of Textron, is who Lupone is replacing at the company. O’Donnell served as the head of all legal and litigation functions as Textron’s head of environmental, health and safety organization. According to Textron, O’Donnell has decided to retire from his post to return to his legal practice in Washington.
Donnelly said of O’Donnell, “He has been a highly valued and respected leader who has played an integral role in the strategic decisions that have shaped Textron and positioned the company for future growth.”
Lupone was the vice president and general counsel for Price Communications Corp. before he joined Siemens. Lupone also worked as an attorney at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP and Rogers & Wells, a New York-based law firm that merged in 2000 with the London firm of Clifford Chance LLP
Lupone earned his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center after graduating from Brown University. Lupone will be responsible for Textron’s multiple legal matters as the company’s general counsel. As Lupone takes over, Textron is currently facing a class action that claims the company breached its fiduciary duty. The company did this by permitting employees to invest portions of their retirement funds in the inflated stock of the company.
The stock of Textron dropped from a class-period high of $74.40 per share in December of 2007 to a class-period low of $3.57 per share in March of 2009. This occurred when multiple negative incidents came to the forefront, including a $3.5 million settlement with federal securities regulators.
United States District Judge Paul J. Barbadoro, in September, threw out a separate suit by a shareholder against Textron officials. The lawsuit claimed that the company repurchased its stock at inflated prices due to misleading statements the company made about its own financial wellbeing.
A dismissal motion was granted by Barbadoro after it was filed by former CEO Lewis B. Campbell and former Chief Financial Officer Ted J. French. The motion filed by those entities claim that John D. Walker, a Textron shareholder, did not properly demand that the company sue the officials prior to him filing the action.