Rock­well's CEO re­fus­es to be fired, kick­ing up brawl with board that halts the com­pa­ny's stock

There’s an episode of Se­in­feld that ran in the late 90s in which George Costan­za tries — un­suc­cess­ful­ly — to break up with his girl­friend Mau­ra. “I refuse to give up on this re­la­tion­ship,” she says. “It’s like… launch­ing mis­siles from a sub­ma­rine. Both of us have to turn our keys.” When George urges her to “turn her key,” Mau­ra re­spect­ful­ly de­clines.

The same sce­nario is play­ing out to­day at a mid-sized biotech just out­side of De­troit. Rock­well Med­ical’s board has vot­ed to fire its CEO Robert Chioi­ni. But the CEO won’t turn his key. He’s… un­fired him­self, al­leg­ing that Rock­well Med­ical’s board mem­bers may have vi­o­lat­ed fed­er­al se­cu­ri­ties laws by vot­ing him out. That’s be­cause the pur­pose of this par­tic­u­lar meet­ing was to dis­cuss al­le­ga­tions of breach­es of fidu­cia­ry du­ties, not to vote on fir­ing the CEO.

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