I would probably have to side with Amazon's account since it would be pretty easy for the person who resigned to sue for libel if it were not true. Don't think Amazon would want to expose themselves like that.

I would likely be millions of dollars richer if I happened to record a two minute conversation with my former boss's boss, who was an ecclesiastical leader at a church that I eventually left. He told me point blank that the reason I was fired was because I wasn't faithful enough and was no longer worthy of my (completely unrelated) employment. On the books, however, they made it out to be a performance issue. I had plenty of witnesses available to me that could have proven that it wasn't a performance issue, but in an at-will company, that doesn't get me anything at all.

I don't go around recording random conversations, and corporations have a lot of ways to cover their tracks. When that is your reality and the burden of proof is on you, you don't do anything. You get fucked and you learn from it.

You're approaching it from the employee perspective rather than the employer's. Given that Amazon put this out to repair their image, do you think they would risk a headline (even if eventually proven to be false) that says "Amazon lied about employee's resignation"? This guy could absolutely get someone to take a case pro bono with all the press it's getting.

I'll give you two hypothetical situations:

1) Vendor manager Jim tries to defraud a vendor. He gets caught, and confronted about it. He realizes he messed up, accepts responsibility, and resigns on the spot.

2) Vendor manager Joe gets pressured by boss to defraud a vendor because the boss is under pressure from his boss to cut costs or be fired. Joe pushes back, gets reprimanded for not following Amazon's "disagree and commit" principle, and gets a poor performance review. Joe learns his lesson, defrauds his vendors, and everything is fine. The boss's boss and boss leave eventually because they never could get costs down, and the newly re-orged boss notices some discrepancies. Joe gets blamed for defrauding customers, and is told that he is now violating Amazon's "Insist on the Highest Standards" leadership principle. Joe immediately quits out of frustration with Amazon's leadership and culture.

Here is the problem: Both scenarios have the same paper trail of a fraud allegation and immediate resignation. And that paper trail is enough security to defend a position in court...especially if it is the employee's burden of proof to show what really happened.

RE: #2, agree that this absolutely happens just seems implausible in this situation. For argument's sake, let's assume this happens but it's not widespread at Amazon. I have not read any former employee accounts of it and the NYT would have ABSOLUTELY published something even if they had a whiff of it. Under that assumption, this guy happens to be one of the few people quoted by name in the article that happened to have undergone something shady at work? I don't know why he put his name out there if what Amazon claims is true and I definitely don't know why he would have put his name out there if your second hypothetical is remotely true. Just doesn't make sense.

Why on Earth would anyone want to sue their former employer? Libel or not, that's the fastest way to kill your career.

I can't imagine a corporate legal team on Earth that would advise someone to publish something libelous because they expected a former employee to not sue over it.

Legal exists to make you aware of the risks - not drive them to zero.

Even in the unlikely event that someone would start a libel suit, and win (Or, more likely, quietly settle), the PR victory may be worth the cost.

It's never easy to sue a major organization.

If they publicly lied about someone being fired for fraud, rest assured there would be an ARMY of lawyers ready to take up that case.

It doesn't matter how many lawyers are ready to take the case, initiating and following-through with a lawsuit against a major organization will be taxing indeed. The the organization is a former employer? That's no decision to be made lightly, however justified your suit may be.