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Comment by hourago | Hacker News Reader

> Bitpanda’s chief product officer, Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad, told employees via a Slack message there would be no mass layoffs, weeks before the company cut its workforce by a third.

If they knew of the layoffs and lied Bitpanda must be punished for it. Many employees may have made decisions based on that lie.

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not sure about specific labor laws in your area, but even if they knew for a fact there would be layoffs, and told employees otherwise, i dont think thats punishable (may be wrong/unethical, but legally i dont think they did anything wrong).

being at a company for 16 years, i have learned:

1)everything is status quo, until one day it isnt.

2)there will be no changes, till there is change one day.

3)there will be no layoffs, until one day there is...

alot of times the people working above you directly dont know/are aware of pending doom.

it is possible at the time the CPO made that statement, it could have been true at the time or that they were aware of that there would be no layoffs.

Individuals authorized to speak for companies who state these lies need to personally liable. If someone at the company lied to them to get them to say it, they should be able go after them, like a chain of stolen goods.

Permitting spokespeople to lie is not only toxic, but explicitly removes the equality of information necessary to a functioning free market. It's in everyone's interest to punish it.

They've already covered this, lie or not by stating AT THE TIME the statement was made it was believed to be true, with a lay-off decision only made a few days before it was executed.

A lot happened in those three weeks. Bitcoin dropped by a third and at least a few coins collapsed.

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