WPP has been hit with a $100 million lawsuit filed by a former executive at the company—Richard Foster—alleging that he was terminated earlier this year for raising concerns about what Foster called improper rebate practices related to media buys by GroupM. He was let go around the time that GroupM rebranded to WPP Media.  

According to Foster the deals involved $1.5 billion to $2 billion of rebates that should have been returned to clients but that WPP pocketed instead.  

The suit was filed in New York State Supreme Court earlier this week.   

In his complaint, Foster says he spent 17 years at GroupM rising to global CEO of its content division. By 2025, he was managing approximately $500 million in annual GroupM investment into entertainment projects that funded and co-produced approximately 200 television series each year and more than 2,500 series during his tenure.  

Over a period of eight years, Foster said he built his division to operate independently of the Defendants’ (WPP and WPP Media) “improper inventory and rebate practices.”  

He claims to have established a Global Commercial Operations Team to partner with local markets to vet and approve content investments to ensure deals were structured properly.  

In addition, Foster says he delivered presentations to executive leadership, “characterizing rebate-driven deals as unsustainable, unlawful, and a significant threat to the Company.”  

In May WPP announced that its media business “GroupM” would be rebranded as WPP Media as part of a broader restructuring.   

According to Foster, “While WPP characterized this as part of an integration initiative, it was a pretextual cover for Defendant’s decision to terminate him and his team in retaliation for their repeated objections to GroupM’s rebate-driven trading practices.”   

The complaint seeks relief of “not less than $100 million” for WPP’s retaliating against Foster for “engaging in protected activity and by wrongfully terminating his employment.” The plaintiff seeks compensatory damages for emotional distress, reputational harm, loss of past and future earnings, and more.   

A WPP spokesperson stated, “The Company is aware of a lawsuit in the New York State Court filed by a former employee who was let go in a recent organizational restructuring.  The court has not yet made any findings in relation to the allegations and we will defend them vigorously.”   

In a note issued earlier today, media and marketing consultant Madison & Wall stated, “While we don’t have any opinion on the specific legal complaint, we note that it focuses on global rebate revenue, undoubtedly covering jurisdictions where such activities are the conventional form of agency remuneration, for better and worse.” 

M&W also noted that “the complaint does not point to any specific client contracts where agreements were violated, which raises questions about where exactly contractual problems might be, if anywhere.” 

Also, the firm observed, “the complaint conflates the company’s recent challenges at WPP Media as somehow due to its commercial practices when arguably the business has been negatively impacted by competitors implementing non-transparent trading activities at a more aggressive pace, especially in the United States. Perhaps ironically, the company’s limits on how it embraced these commercial models in the United States was a significant factor leading to the restructuring in which the executive’s role was eliminated.”