Won’t meet at a brothel? You’re fired

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That’s what Steve Biegel, a top American exec who worked for Japanese advertising giant Dentsu, alleges he was told. According to Ad Age:

The former creative director at Dentsu USA has filed suit against the holding company, claiming he was fired after he complained about being put in sexually-charged work situations that included side trips to a Czech brothel, a Tokyo bathhouse and a Maria Sharapova photo shoot.

Among the allegations made in the court papers against the company and CEO Toyo Shigeta:

• A 2004 trip to a Tokyo bathhouse during which the Dentsu chief told Mr. Biegel and others to dip naked into a bath with him.

• A trip to Brazilian beach where Mr. Shigeta took numerous photos emphasizing the crotches of sunbathing women, and not letting up until he was threatened by one of his subject’s male companions.

• A photo shoot in Florida that was the site of another alleged “crotch shot,” this time of tennis star Maria Sharapova, who stars in Dentsu’s “Make Every Shot a Power Shot” campaign for Canon. The snap was passed around and is now attached to the lawsuit as evidence.

• A separate Canon photo shoot that took Messrs. Biegel, Shigeta and others to the Czech Republic, where Mr. Biegel was duped into visiting a brothel. According to the AP, Mr. Biegel and the other executive declined to take part, leaving Mr. Shigeta angry and to label them “no fun.”

Dentsu issued this statement in response:

“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.”

Now, I can’t speak to Biegel’s specific charges. But they’ll sound awfully familiar to anyone who’s worked in Japan or done business with Japanese clients. The first charge doesn’t strike me as much; I don’t much relish the thought of bathing with colleagues or superiors, either, but public baths are an important part of Japanese culture. Still, a CEO of a multinational corporation like Dentsu ought to know that Americans would find the ritual really uncomfortable.

Biegel’s other allegations are far more serious, in my view, even though they don’t surprise me. My older brother worked many years in Japan’s hard-charging finance field, where few would bat an eye at conducting an after-hours meeting at a strip joint. And while working as a correspondent in Japan, I reported many times from red-light-district joints packed with businessmen.

As for the crotch shots–I mean, gross.

Biegel is a married, American man who has the kahonas cojones (thanks, daddyinastrangeland) and the morals to speak up (Ad Age adds that Biegel was fired in November 2006, though he won Dentsu’s bronze Effie this year for his presumably commendable work). But too many globe-trotting execs let offensive behavior slide, chalking it up to cultural differences.

Women don’t have that option. Were Biegel a she, he simply wouldn’t have been invited to these male-bonding sessions–thus missing out on important face time with the big bosses. Stacie Berdan talks about how women should handle this kind of behavior in her new book, Getting Ahead by Going Abroad (here’s her blog of the same name).

I think any expert would agree that lawsuits are the last option. Sue Shellenbarger’s Work & Family Mailbox at the Journal addresses this question. Still, Biegel’s a brave man for speaking up. And I’m betting that crotch shot of Maria Sharapova (blurgh–that’s me throwing up in my mouth) goes a long way toward persuading the jury.