Former Stryker Exec Muddied by Sexual Harassment Rumors

A proxy fight for surgical and patient monitoring products maker ConMed has reached new levels of abrasiveness, with accusations of sexual harassment flying around a board candidate who used to lead Stryker Corp.

Voce Capital Management, which has proposed four of its own independent board candidates for Utica, NY-based ConMed's board, has trashed the two new directors ConMed plans to bring on as part of a recently announced agreement with Coppersmith Capital Management and certain affiliates.Voce referred to an allegation that Alere made about Hartman during Coppersmith's unsuccessful attempt to take over the connected health company. In an SEC filing, Alere alleged that sources disclosed that Hartman "was the subject of multiple allegations of sexual harassment during his tenure at Stryker and that these allegations were settled confidentially for substantial monetary payments." Alere further explains in the document: "Specifically, we learned that three sexual harassment claims against Mr. Hartman were settled by Stryker, including one after he ceased to be interim CEO, and we believe that these events may have been a factor contributing to Mr. Hartman being passed over for the full-time CEO position." Voce explains in its letter that "Alere didn't just float these charges as a trial balloon, nor whisper them behind closed doors; it was confident enough to publish them in a press release and then file it with the SEC. Why would a sophisticated, publicly-traded company have made such salacious allegations which, if untrue, could be defamatory ... unless it believed it had a firm basis for making these statements?" Dan Gagnier, a spokesperson for Coppersmith, said the Voce letter "contains baseless allegations and false and misleading statements" related to Hartman, as well as another Coppersmith-supported board candidate, Jerome Lande. "The historical allegations have been refuted in detail and are on the public record--a fact Voce deliberately ignored. These are vicious personal and professional attacks that are entirely unjustified, create serious questions about Voce as a fiduciary, deserve scrutiny by regulators, and do nothing to advance the goals of change and value creation for the shareholders," Gagnier said.Hartman did not immediately respond to a request for comment over LinkedIn.It is worth noting that Voce listed only 38,448 shares of ConMed shares it was holding when it filed its proxy statement with the SEC. Coppersmith owns more than 1.6 million shares of ConMed, which equals 6% of the company.If the allegations are true, Hartman would have been the second leader in a row to leave Stryker under such a cloud of suspicion.Hartman, who was Stryker's vice president and CFO before serving as interim CEO for nine months in 2012, took over after previous CEO Stephen MacMillan's departure.MacMillan was "forced out partly because certain board members became bothered by his handling of a relationship with a former flight attendant for the company's corporate jets while his wife pursued a divorce," according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.Earlier in the year, though, Zimmer also levied accusations at Stryker--for conspiring to poach its business.Kevin Lobo, a former J&J group president, is now president and CEO of Kalamazoo, MI-based Stryker. The company has had a reputation as a great place to work, with kudos from Forbes, Glassdoor.com, and even some Qmed readers in a recent informal survey. 

Chris Newmarker is senior editor of MPMN and Qmed. Follow him on Twitter at @newmarker.