Tech

Alphabet legal chief David Drummond dumps $77 million of stock, including all remaining Class A shares

Key Points
  • David Drummond, Alphabet's chief legal officer, just sold $77 million in stock, the third straight month his share sales topped $70 million.
  • Drummond has become a controversial figure since allegations emerged about inappropriate relationships with Alphabet employees.
David Drummond speaks during a meeting of the Advisory Council to Google on the Right to be Forgotten in Paris.
Eric Piermont | AFP | Getty Images

Alphabet Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, who is being investigated by the company for alleged sexual misconduct, has just sold $77 million worth of stock, including all his remaining Class A shares, according to SEC filings released on Thursday.

Drummond sold over 28,000 of both Class A and C stock, the filings said. He still owns more than 67,000 Class C shares valued at about $92 million, as of Friday. The share sales were part of a 10b5-1 trading plan, meaning they were pre-arranged.

It's the third straight month in which Drummond has dumped a significant amount of stock, following sales of over $70 million in November and again in December. The latter sale occurred just before the announced departures of co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. For all of 2018, Drummond sold about $70 million of stock, filings show.

Drummond, an 18-year company veteran, is among the Alphabet executives involved in a probe that resulted from a shareholder lawsuit against the company. Late last year, Alphabet's board launched an investigation into the handling of sexual misconduct claims, including the behavior of Drummond, who has been accused of having inappropriate relationships with employees.

Alphabet didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alphabet has three classes of shares. Class A holders get one vote per share, while Class C shares include no voting rights. Class B shares, which are primarily owned by Page and Brin, come with 10 votes each. As of the company's proxy filing in April, Drummond owned 12,500 Class B shares.

Alphabet shareholders sued the board last January for allegedly covering up sexual misconduct by executives. The lawsuit named Drummond as well as Android co-founder Andy Rubin, who was given an exit package of $90 million by Alphabet after an internal investigation determined that sexual misconduct claims against him were credible.

Rubin denied any wrongdoing in statements at the time of the report but his payout set off a companywide walkout by employees in November 2018. In August, after a former Google employee named Jennifer Blakely published a lengthy post about her relationship with Drummond dating back to around 2004, Drummond said he "never started a relationship with anyone else who was working at Google or Alphabet."

CNBC reported in December that Alphabet received a two-month extension to provide a response to the shareholder lawsuit. The company will have until mid-February to respond to claims but said it has concluded the investigation and will seek mediation, according to court filings.

Correction: A previous version of this story used incorrect numbers for the number of shares Drummond sold and still owns.

WATCH: Why Alphabet's investigating executives over inappropriate relationships

Why Alphabet's investigating executives over inappropriate relationships
VIDEO2:0302:03
Why Alphabet's investigating executives over inappropriate relationships