McDonald’s, the multinational fast-food chain, has thwarted an extortion plot by an employee in SA who threatened to tarnish the company’s reputation with its customers.
Former employee Clement Seothaeng sent a video to the group in which he is seen spitting on an ice cream cup while wearing his work uniform. He threatened to release the video if the company did not pay him R100,000.
On learning about the potential release of the video on social media, the company escalated the matter to its risk manager for SA. This led to the CEO being notified and the company engaging attorneys to address the issue. An investigation found that Seothaeng was behind the extortion, and he admitted it. He justified his action by claiming that his anger towards the company drove him to do it.
The company filed criminal and malicious injury to property charges. Seothaeng was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for extortion and five years’ imprisonment for malicious injury to property.
Appeal
Last week, he tried to appeal against the sentence, arguing that the court overemphasised the seriousness of his crimes and that the sentence was “grossly excessive”.
His appeal was partially successful after the high court in Pretoria agreed that two years of the five-year sentence for malicious damage to property should run concurrently with the 10-year extortion sentence, leaving him with an effective 13-year sentence.
The judges noted that Seothaeng’s conduct had the potential to affect McDonald’s brand which is worth millions. “It is important to have regard to the context as correctly argued on behalf of the respondent (the NPA) that the appellant enjoyed a trust relationship with McDonald’s as an employee. By extorting R100,000 from his employer, the appellant broke the trust which must be viewed in a serious light,” they said.
“To interfere with the sentence that was imposed by the court will send a wrong message and negate the seriousness of this kind of offence. It follows that for the offence of extortion we are not persuaded that there is merit and these grounds in so far as that offence is concerned must fail.”
McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in SA in November 1995. Today, it operates about 400 restaurants in the nine provinces, employing more than 10,000 people.
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