This is classic. For thirty years Wal-Mart executives had Flagler Communications tape all of their board meetings, corporate sales meetings and other company events.
Recently they told Flagler that their services were no longer needed.
Flagler has responded in a singularly delightful way. From ABC News:
Wal-Mart Exposed: Videos You Were Never Meant To SeeAnd Wal-Mart's response to this?
Videos From Inside Wal-Mart's Corporate Meetings Are For Sale To Willing Buyers
From the tough anti-union talk to the wilder side of men in drag, videos of Wal-Mart corporate meetings are being sold to willing buyers, and the corporate behemoth is not happy about it.
The videos, thousands of them spanning three decades, are in the library of a production company in Lenexa, Kan. Flagler Productions Inc. was hired on a handshake deal by Wal-Mart in the 1970s to produce and film corporate sales meetings and other company events.
After receiving a verbal commitment that Flagler would be used for meetings in the future, Wal-Mart abruptly ended its deal with Flagler in 2006 causing the company to lay off most of their employees, according to Flagler. Representatives from Wal-Mart tried to buy the library in 2007, but Flagler and Wal-Mart could not agree on a price so the sale never happened.
Now, Flagler is offering the tapes to anyone else who might be interested, including the media and plaintiffs' attorneys.
Wal-Mart released this statement to ABCNews.com today. "Needless to say, we did not pay Flagler Productions to tape internal meetings with this aftermarket in mind. It's definitely an unusual business model on their end, and we can't imagine too many other clients will be eager to pay for this service."
