A lawsuit filed by the chief financial officer of Motorola Inc. after he was fired following a presentation provides a rare peek into dysfunctional relationships at the top of a major company.
Motorola claims it fired the CFO “for cause” — a term usually reserved for suspected embezzlers — while the former CFO says he was canned for blowing the whistle on problems.
The case represents more trouble for the cellphone maker, which has been struggling with billion-dollar losses and laying off thousands of workers.
Paul Liska, 53, fired a broadside at the company’s ailing cellphone division at a subcommittee meeting Jan. 28.
But the hornets that flew out from that nest went for him, not his intended target — the head of Motorola’s cellphone division, Sanjay Jha, a rising star of the wireless world recruited by Motorola last August to head Mobile Devices and make it an independent company, according to public records accompanying the lawsuit.