Ousted Market Basket CEO Heads To Court In Delaware

BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The Demoulas family is heading to court.

A three-day trial over leadership at Market Basket was scheduled to begin in Delaware on Tuesday, featuring two sides of the Demoulas family. The former longtime CEO Arthur T. Demoulas claims he and several of his colleagues were improperly pushed off the leadership team at the store over disagreements with his sisters over who should have a controlling stake of the board.

The ousted CEO filed a counterclaim earlier this year in hopes of getting his job back after the board fired and sued him in September. A spokesperson for Demoulas said the board broke Market Basket's bylaws by firing him before "he had the opportunity to defend himself," and that the lawsuit filed against Demoulas was an attempt "to justify their action as proper and ask the courts to bless it."

Lawyers for the former CEO say the board is beholden to his sisters who own 60% of the company behind the grocery store chain. In a statement, the board said the accusations are false and that Demoulas was fired because he withheld important operational information.

"A CEO cannot stay at the helm of a company if he refuses to be accountable to the Board. And that was and continues to be Mr. Demoulas’s failing," the statement read. "Mr. Demoulas wouldn’t even allow the Board into the Market Basket headquarters or to meet his senior staff. Whether to be accountable rather than autocratic has always been within Mr. Demoulas’s sole control. But he repeatedly refused, even up to the point of his termination."

There will be several witnesses testifying at this trial with close ties to the company.

WBZ NewsRadio’s Jim MacKay (@JimMacKayOnAir) reports.