Sony executives who were being held by workers in France have been released. The workers were upset about the closing of their plant. The head of human resources, Roland Bentz, and CEO of Sony France, Serge Foucher, were being held because the workers were unhappy with Sony’s severance package. The executives have not been able more »

If I were Motorola this week, I’d be feeling a bit nauseated. The company took some particularly bad hits this week — hits that would take the wind out of almost anyone’s sails. Let’s give you a rundown of the fun this week at Moto.

Good news, everyone: Motorola’s co-CEOs have declined to take their bonus for 2008. On the surface, that sounds like a great thing; Motorola can use that money to help the company out. However, in reality, the bonuses were mainly from stock awards, which would be virtually worthless considering Motorola’s current stock price.

The bad news: Motorola had to shut down one of its plants in China and let go about 5000 employees. This should be another good cost-cutting measure for Moto. And it is going to need that money to pay its legal fees because Motorola is being sued by its former CFO for retaliatory discharge (usually this refers to a firing in response to an employee acting in the public interest). If his allegations are true, and Moto is firing people who are looking out for the public interest, it is time to be afraid of who they are keeping around.