Seattle CEO Who Set $70,000 Minimum Wage for Employees Sued By His Own Brother Over the Policy

by Warner Todd Huston | July 21, 2015 4:39 pm

You might recall earlier this year that a CEO of a credit-card-processing company in Seattle (the West Coast, where else?) announced to great acclaim that he intended to pay every employee a base salary of $70,000 a year. But now the CEO’s brother is suing saying that his absurdly generous brother violated is shareholder’s rights with the crazy move.

In March of this year CEO of Gravity Payments Dan Price announced that everyone in the company would get at lest a $70,000 annual salary. Even the lowest paid worker would get the raise, he said.

But now the company’s shareholders led by Price’s own brother, Lucas, are revolting[1] at the profits-sapping plan. Lucas helped Dan Price found the company in 2004, so he has a big stake in the company.

Lucas Price accuses his brother and co-founder, Dan Price, in court documents of violating his rights as minority shareholder in Gravity Payments and breaching duties and contracts.

The complaints were initially signed March 13 and filed April 24, 11 days after Dan Price announced the pay raises for the 120 employees of Gravity Payments.

Also this[2]….

Lucas Price claims his brother excessively paid himself and deprived Lucas Price of his minority-shareholder benefits. According to media reports, Dan Price was paying himself nearly $1 million a year before announcing he would cut his pay to $70,000 to help Gravity raise the pay of its employees to $70,000 over the next three years.

The battle is now in the courts.