Foundry Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: FDRY) and its CEO Bobby Johnson are officially off the hook. A lawsuit accusing the CEO and his company of harassment and discrimination has been settled (see Ex Foundry VP Sues Company, CEO).

After more than a year of legal bantering and paper pushing, the lawsuit, which was filed by former vice president of marketing Drusie Demopolous against Foundry and Johnson, has been dismissed, according to court papers filed in the Superior Court of California in the county of Santa Clara in January.

Both sides in the case have agreed to keep terms of the settlement and the nature of the dismissal under wraps. But according to Demopoulos’s lawyer, Mary J. Shea, both sides were "satisfied" with the outcome.

Demopoulos filed the lawsuit in November 2000 alleging that Johnson continually harassed her at work and at home when it became known to him that she was planning to start a family. The suit also alleged that Demopoulos was wrongfully fired from her position after an argument with Johnson where she objected to his harassment and discrimination. The suit also claims that Demopoulos suffered two miscarriages as a result of the stress that Johnson had placed on her prior to the company’s going public in the fall of 1999.

Demopoulos had been seeking the return of over 1.1 million shares of unvested stock options, worth approximately $65 million back when the suit was filed -- and Foundry's stock was trading around $59 a share. Today, its stock is trading at $8.45, which would make these options worth roughly $9,300,000. Aside from the options that Demopoulos says she lost when she was fired, she still was able to keep about 1.4 million shares, which today are worth about $11.8 million, a far cry from the $82.6 million they were worth when she filed the lawsuit back in 2000.

Foundry did not return phone calls for comment.

— Marguerite Reardon, Senior Editor, Light Reading
http://www.lightreading.com