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JWT and Gustavo Martinez come out fighting in acrimonious lawsuit

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By John Glenday, Reporter

January 12, 2017 | 2 min read

Gustavo Martinez, former global chief of WPP owned J. Walter Thompson, has come out fighting alongside his ex-agency against the lawsuit filed by JWT's global chief communications officer Erin Johnson last year.

In new documents filed as part of the ongoing case, Martinez along with the agency and holding group's lawyers deny the charges levied against him.

Last year, Johnson alleged that Martinez repeatedly joked about rape and made a number of racist and anti-Semitic comments while he was at the agency's helm. It also emerged in the lawsuit that during an interview he told Campaign journalist Douglas Quenqua he had moved out of Westchester County in New York because it had "too many Jews."

Martinez denied the claims laid out by Johnson, calling them "outlandish" at the time. He was however, replaced by Tamara Ingram and given an unspecified role working in Spain and Latin America.

But in a new document, the lawyers representing Martinez, JWT and WPP have admitted that Martinez did indeed make comments about his decision to move house to Quenqua.

However, the defendant’s legal teams refuse to confirm or deny the actual language used, adding that that the sentiment had merely sought to convey that "he and his wife wanted to live in a diverse community."

On the other allegations made by Johnson, Martinez admits to having conversations she describes but "denies [that] any Semitic, much less anti-Semitic comments were made in this regard."

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