At the Danish international meat company Danbred, after the director, all members of the Board of Directors have also resigned. The direct cause are allegations by young female employees of sexual abuse by director Thomas Muurmann, and the way the board tried to conceal it.
After the director initially decided to step down, the shareholders of Danbred (Landbrug & Fødevarer, DBI Holding, and Danish Agro) decided to withdraw their board members, so that the company can have a completely new management. The current chairman of DanBred, Christian Junker, is also stepping down.
The issue of the complaints from several young female employees has been ongoing for several months, since the company summer party. Earlier attempts were made to handle the complaints internally, allowing director Muurmann to remain in position.
Leaving the director in place over the past months led to the departure of three high-ranking officials. Remarkably, none of them had a new job when they left Danbred. At the time, the major shareholder Agriculture & Food stated their departure was due to disagreements over a personnel matter but did not provide further details.
It has since emerged that the three women had addressed a letter to the top of Agriculture & Food asking for help. But in response, they only received a letter describing their experience as "serious" but stating that it was not necessary to punish the director.
On Wednesday evening, after the whole case was leaked and broadly covered in the Danish media, the board finally stated that it “agreed with Thomas Muurmann Henriksen’s decision for immediate dismissal,” according to a press release. Two days later, the board itself also stepped down.
Danbred P/S was established in 2017 and, alongside L&F, has both Danish Agro and Holdingselskabet DBI A/S as minority shareholders. The company, which is called "one of the golden eggs of Danish agriculture," sells breeding pigs and semen to large parts of the world.