Ocean Tomo Litigation Sheds Light on Unannounced Multi-million Dollar BlackBerry Transaction

Late last month, Michael Friedman, a former Managing Director at Ocean Tomo, LLC, sued the consulting firm and its CEO James Malackowski and COO Andrew Carter. In a complaint filed December 21, 2015, with the Circuit Court of Cook County (2015-L-012826), Friedman accuses Ocean Tomo of failing to pay him 2013-2014 bonus compensation totaling over $922K. According to Friedman, Ocean Tomo’s pretext for denying payment for the bonuses is an alleged breach of fiduciary duty in connection with a deal that closed in November 2015—a multi-million dollar deal between BlackBerry and Centerbridge Partners that, until now, has remained surreptitiously opaque.