I recently left a CEO position for Private Equity owned business. The business was initially owned by one PE firm who placed me into the CEO role, and the business went through a change-in-control where another investor-PE firm assumed control of the business. So half of my time there was with one PE firm and the other half of my time was with the other PE firm. My wife is a talent acquisition/recruiter and after giving up her job due to relocating for my position I was given permission to have her do some contingent searches to fill some key roles for the business. She filled two roles and did an extensive amount of contract work to fix the payroll system so that employees could be paid, and invoiced accordingly. She was told numerous times over the past seven months that she would be paid for those invoices... right up until I left the business. She even cut her rate substantially, and didn't charge for well over half of the work she did as a favor because she had a vested interest in helping make the business succeed.
She has an attorney here in Chicago who is helping try to collect her fees. But rather than pay those fees the PE firm is now saber-rattling and threatening to sue ME for some manufactured nuisance made-up BS. They originally claimed it was "self-dealing", but I have emails and texts with both PE firms that gave the ok to have her recruit. So now they're threatening to make stuff up and sue for far more than she is trying to collect. It would be frivolous, but a total pain in the a$$. My wife's invoices are for nearly $100k, so it's worth pursuing. The entire situation sucks, but... it is what it is. They are complete POS's, which is why I chose to leave.
Ultimately, my question is this. While any nuisance suit they might file would be completely meritless I would still need to defend myself. To that end, is there any type of liability insurance or umbrella-type policy for former executives/board members that covers them against suits AFTER they've left a company?
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