Source : THE AGE NEWS
Richard White, WiseTech Global’s billionaire executive chairman, has reached a settlement with a third woman who has raised allegations against him, this time that he had provided her with financial assistance and help with her visa in return for sex.
The businessman, who built the logistics software empire from a start-up into a company worth almost $30 billion, has been dogged by allegations of inappropriate behaviour toward former staff.
WiseTech Global founder Richard White and former employee Caroline Heidemann.
On Monday, he settled with Caroline Heidemann, a Brazilian on a temporary visa who had alleged White had created a situation of “economic dependency” and engaged in “unlawful conduct for sexual gratification”.
The matter had been due in court on Tuesday but has been dismissed. This masthead first reported the claim in February and last month revealed Heidemann was being assisted by lawyers at Anti-Slavery Australia to remain in the country.
White and Heidemann declined to comment.
WiseTech founder Richard White has faced a wave of allegations.Credit: Natalie Boog
Heidemann had alleged in the Federal Court that White “made it clear that financial assistance was contingent upon her “engaging in a personal and sexual relationship with him”. White denied Heidemann’s claims, and said the pair had been in a consensual relationship which ended last year.
Heidemann, who worked at WiseTech for 15 months, claimed that White “cultivated a personal relationship … presenting himself as a mentor and benefactor”. After she was made redundant during the COVID-19 pandemic, White allegedly employed her at his private company RealWise Management but paid her no wages or superannuation.
Instead, he supported her financially, paid for her English lessons and rented her an apartment in Mascot, south of Sydney’s CBD.
Heidemann claims that White’s conduct “was calculated and premeditated” and that he subjected her to “degrading treatment” by attaching her financial security and immigration status to his “sexual demands”.
In October, White separately settled with Sydney wellness entrepreneur Linda Rogan. The year-long stoush between White and Rogan spilled into the open in October after the businessman served a bankruptcy notice on her, and she applied to have it rejected. Rogan alleged White had expected her to have sex with him in exchange for an investment in her business.
White was forced to resign as chief executive and from the board of the logistics platform company in October after a joint investigation by The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Financial Review revealed a $2 million settlement with a former lover and allegations of bullying and intimidation by a former director.
The revelations prompted the WiseTech board to commission a review to examine the allegations of inappropriate conduct made by women against White. Preliminary findings of the review cleared White in November.
However, this masthead reported in February that two women – one an employee and the other a contractor – had complained to the company about his conduct.
The impasse over the release of the report, along with White’s continuing role at WiseTech, led to the dramatic resignation of four independent directors in February. The billionaire controls 36 per cent of WiseTech’s share register and manoeuvred a return to the company as executive chairman in February two days after the board exodus.
The final report was authored by Seyfarth Shaw and Herbert Smith Freehills and was only partially released last month. It found White misled the company over his relationship with employees, but the new WiseTech board, made up of the founder’s allies, took no action against him.
