We reported Friday the torrid tale of an ex-Yahoo employee, Nan Shi, suing her former Yahoo supervisor for sexual harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and unlawful termination.
Today, Yahoo has informed us that the accused, Yahoo senior director of engineering Maria Zhang, has filed a cross-compaint against Shi for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Santa Clara.
“As we previously stated, there is absolutely no basis or truth to the allegations against Maria Zhang,” said Yahoo senior manager of public policy communications Suzanne Philion in a note to VentureBeat. “Maria is an exemplary Yahoo executive, and we intend to fight vigorously to clear her name.”
Zhang plays a key role in Yahoo’s mobile content development efforts. Both Shi and Zhang came to Yahoo when the firm acquired their Seattle-based mobile software-development company.
Shi claims she was repeatedly coerced by Zhang into having “oral and digital sex” while she was working as a software designer at Yahoo. Shi alleges that she was terminated after she later refused Zhang’s advances.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Discover our Briefings.
