Dentsu Prepares Countersuit v. Biegel

NEW YORK Dentsu plans to countersue its former U.S. creative director, Steve Biegel, for libel and fraud, an agency representative said, in response to a lawsuit filed Oct. 31 in which Biegel alleges he was pressured to visit a brothel and engage in other sexually explicit activities on company outings and then was fired after he complained.As of late Thursday, Dentsu had not received Biegel's complaint and executives there could not say when their own filing would be made.Biegel is a disgruntled former employee who filed the lawsuit in retaliation for his firing last November over performance issues, according to sources who asked to remain nameless.Biegel and his attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment.The former cd of the U.S. arm of Japan's largest advertising agency is seeking unspecified damages, according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Steve Biegel said he and other company employees were put in awkward, sexually charged situations by Toyo Shigeta, the chief executive officer of Dentsu Holdings USA, per court papers.Click here for a copy of the lawsuit.Dentsu provided this statement on the lawsuit: "Steve Biegel is a former employee who was terminated almost a year ago. When Dentsu refused to yield to Mr. Biegel's unreasonable demands, he made outrageous allegations which the company has refuted. He has now filed a claim to obtain money to which he is not entitled, for incidents he alleges took place over three years ago and which he never complained about while an employee of Dentsu. The company intends to counterclaim that Mr. Biegel has libeled Dentsu and defrauded the company. We look forward to the opportunity to vindicate our company in court."Biegel said in the suit he was the executive responsible for developing television, radio, print and outdoor advertisements for many of Dentsu's most important clients when he was asked to go on a trip in June 2004 to the Czech Republic, where a commercial was shot for Canon Inc.On one evening during the trip, Shigeta ordered Biegel and another employee of the company to go on an outing with him but refused to say where they were going, the lawsuit said.Shigeta took them to a brothel, leaving Biegel, who is married, offended and humiliated that he had been forced or duped into going there, the lawsuit said.It said Shigeta later demanded they participate in prostitution and became angry when they did not, accusing them of being "no fun."The lawsuit said Shigeta later told them that having sex with prostitutes was a proper style of conducting business and commemorating business dealings.According to the lawsuit, Biegel, of Woodbury, N.Y., was "horrified, offended and humiliated by this sexually debasing experience of being forced to attend a brothel imposed on him as a condition of his employment."On another business trip to Tokyo in October 2004, Shigeta insisted that Biegel and two other employees accompany him to a Japanese bathhouse where they were instructed to climb naked into a bath with Shigeta, the lawsuit said.Biegel confronted Shigeta in spring 2006, telling him he almost complained to human resources about the bathhouse experience, the lawsuit states. Afterward, Shigeta's attitude and demeanor toward Biegel changed completely and he was fired in November 2006, the lawsuit said.The Associates Press contributed to this report, which updates and replaces an item posted Nov. 1 with news of Dentsu's planned countersuit and other information.

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Dentsu Prepares Countersuit v. Biegel

Noreen O'Leary

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