Ergo now owns Hamburg Mannheimer, the company which organised the party in the historical Gellert thermal baths in Budapest. The ‘incentive’ trip for the most successful sales reps has come back to haunt the company after two participants broke the story last Thursday.
Oletzky told news magazine Der Spiegel that the orgy was part of a three-day trip, though he was unwilling to go into more detail, "as we are still investigating what happened."
He called the event "a grave mistake" and said it was "a gross breach" of company rules.
Ergo is also considering whether to sue the organisers of the event, and Oletzky explained the company is speaking to a number of different participants. "The accounts about the events vary a lot," he said. "It will be very difficult to reconstruct who did what on this trip."
Oletzky admitted that many freelance salesmen who took part in the trip still work for Ergo, but he said that participation was not enough reason to fire them.
"You can condemn it morally," he said. "But the really grave offence is that those responsible from our company organised it." Those people apparently no longer work for Ergo.
Oletzky said the scandal was "extremely embarrassing" for the firm.
One participant told the Handelsblatt newspaper last week that four-poster beds were set up on either sides of the thermal baths. “Anyone could go to one of the beds with one of the ladies and do what he wanted. The ladies were marked with stamps on their forearms after each such meeting. So it was recorded how often each lady frequented.”
“The ladies wore red and yellow wrist bands. One group were there as hostesses, and the others were to fulfill any and every desire,” he added. “There were also ladies with white wrist bands. They were reserved for the board and the very best salesmen.”
The Local/bk
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