Former Pimco Executive Files, Then Withdraws, Suit Contending Misconduct A former executive at the Pacific Investment Management Company, the money management giant known as Pimco, has said that he was fired last year after reporting an array of misconduct at the firm to federal law enforcement officials. In a lawsuit filed on March 5 in a California state court, Jason Williams, 36, a former high-yield bond portfolio manager at Pimco, claimed that senior executives had engaged in a variety of misdeeds, including insider trading and manipulating the ratings and values of certain bond holdings to the detriment of clients. Mr. Williams withdrew the lawsuit three days after filing it, and now his lawyers and Pimco representatives are engaged in talks related to resolving the dispute, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. A Pimco spokesman, Dan Tarman, said that the company does not comment on legal matters. David Spivak, a lawyer for Mr. Williams, declined to comment. The wrongful-termination complaint had sought compensation for the damage done to Mr. Williams's professional reputation, as well as punitive damages. From its headquarters in Newport Beach, Calif., Pimco manages about $2 trillion in assets, making it one of the world's largest money management firms. The firm is perhaps best known for its co-founder, William H. Gross, and its chief executive, Mohamed A. El-Erian, both of whom frequently appear on television prognosticating on the global financial markets. Mr. Williams, who worked at Pimco for more than a decade, claimed that he had witnessed multiple instances of wrongdoing by the firm's senior management. He reported the actions to compliance officials, and also told his supervisor, Chris Dialnyas, who, according to the Pimco Web site, is a managing director and member of the firm's investment committee. The Pimco spokesman, Mr. Tarman, said the firm performs an appropriate review of all employee complaints or concerns. Mr. Williams said that after lodging his complaints, his pay was reduced and he was subjected to verbal abuse. He then reported the conduct to federal agents in the Treasury Department, according to the court filing. The lawsuit suggests that the agents, who worked for the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, opened an investigation. A spokesman for the special inspector general, Troy D. Gravitt, declined to comment. The lawsuit was earlier reported by Ignites, a mutual-fund industry trade publication. Mr. Williams said that in March 2012, three weeks after he informed Pimco's human resources department that he had taken his complaints to the federal government, the firm fired him. Pimco told him that he was fired for "performance reasons," the complaint said, but Mr. Williams maintains that he was terminated because of his cooperation in an investigation into the firm's activities. The lawsuit makes a range of accusations against Pimco executives. Mr. Williams, who held the title of vice president, said that in December 2008, a senior manager directed him to "arbitrarily elevate" the rating that a Pimco analyst had assigned to a bond to place the bond in funds that had a higher rating requirement. Around that same time, Mr. Williams said, senior Pimco management "attempted unlawful trading on inside information involving stock in El Paso Corporation." Mr. Williams also said that last March he noticed the "artificial manipulation" of the price of the Pimco Total Return Fund, an exchange-traded vehicle with about $285 billion in assets.