Former in-house attorney for General Electric, Adriana Koeck, hasn't been accused of keeping a blog while working for the business giant. But she does stand accused of leaking sensitive — and, um, legally confidential — documents to a reporter. The New York Times' David Cay Johnston, who retired April 11 and now writes for Tax Notes International, is said to have benefitted from Koeck's information generosity, publishing a story for his new employer about an alleged tax fraud scheme at a GE subsidiary in Brazil. Naturally, GE isn't very pleased about the article's allegations — which have been picked up in Brazil but not very much in the U.S. — or how it came to be.

GE went so far as to threaten Tax Notes to yank the article.

In papers filed in conjunction with the lawsuit against Koeck, GE’s lawyers boast about successfully muscling an unidentified web site into taking down Johnston’s article.

“Koeck’s wrongful disclosures to a news reporter led to the publication of a news article containing false, malicious and highly misleading statements about GE,” the lawyers wrote in a motion filed with the court earlier this month.

“Specifically, on Monday, June 30, the same news reporter, now with a separate publication, used information she (Koeck) supplied to publish a news article containing false and malicious statements about GE. The news article appeared on several websites and in a Brazilian newspaper.”

In a footnote, the lawyers wrote:

“After GE notified the website that the article was false, misleading, and based on privileged and confidential documents, the site agreed, as an interim measure, to remove the article pending further discussions between GE and the website.”

In fact, Tax Notes International posted the Johnston article on its web site for just a couple of days in late June 2008, and then took it down.

But Tax Notes editor in chief David Brunori disputed GE’s claim.

“We took it down before GE contacted us,” Brunori said. “Our taking it down didn’t have anything to do with GE. We are 100 subscription funded. We sometimes put teasers up from some of our better known writers on our free web site saying, in effect – look at us. Now, we have somebody famous writing for us. So, we put the article up for just a couple days – just to draw attention. The article remains in our database for subscribers. It is also available through Lexis.”

So, has GE threatened Tax Notes?

“We have been in discussions with GE quite a bit,” Brunori said. “They want us to pull the story. There is no doubt about that. When we think in terms of pulling the story – that means running a retraction. We have pulled stories in the past. But we stand by Johnston’s story. We are not going to pull the story. We are not going to issue a retraction. We think his facts were right. That’s all we care about.”

Johnston is also upset with GE for spreading what he says is a “falsehood” – that the New York Times wouldn’t publish his article.

One of GE’s attorneys, Sarah Bouchard, a partner at Morgan Lewis in Philadelphia, repeated this charge earlier this month in papers filed with the court.

In those papers, Bouchard said that on April 10, 2008, “the New York Times informed GE that they would not publish Johnston’s article.”

Johnston said that this isn’t the first time GE has spread this story. A GE executive in Brazil has been saying the same thing, Johnston said.

“The New York Times never refused to publish this article,” Johnston told Corporate Crime Reporter. “I told GE that in writing. And anyone concerned about the integrity of the courts should be troubled if GE and its lawyers would put forth a false declaration by someone who was not a participant to the internal editorial process of the New York Times.”

“I retired on April 11 as a reporter for the New York Times,” Johnston said. “I hadn’t finished my story. I had made other commitments. And I could have come back to finish the story. Or I could take the story with me. The Times, graciously, let me take the story with me.”

Koeck worked at GE from January 3, 2006 to January 26, 2007 – when her employment was “terminated.”

[Corporate Crime Reporter]