Seven West Media has admitted that its chief executive Tim Worner had an inappropriate relationship with a 35-year-old personal assistant after the affair became public following the breakdown of legal negotiations.
Amber Harrison, a former executive assistant at Seven, has detailed claims about a consensual sexual relationship with Mr Worner for two years from 2012.
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Seven executive's extra-marital affair in legal battle
Legal stoush after Seven West Media boss Tim Worner's messy affair with a 35-year-old executive assistant goes public after negotiations breakdown.
When the affair began, Ms Harrison was the executive assistant to Nick Chan, then CEO of Seven West's magazine division Pacific Magazines. Ms Harrison's statement contained salacious allegations about the affair with Mr Worner and detailed their time together on corporate retreats.
"The affair began the month after the [November 2012] board meeting at Pacific Magazines. We started flirting and soon after Tim began texting and emailing me for sex," Ms Harrison said.
"I knew he was married. It was never about love. It was about sex and power."
Seven has confirmed that Mr Worner has previously apologised for the inappropriate relationship and claims that $100,000 the network paid to Ms Harrison was out of sympathy because she had raised mental health concerns.
For her part, Ms Harrison says she has been treated badly by the network and that when she complained about her treatment by Mr Worner she was hit with claims that she had misappropriated $262,000 of unauthorised expenditure on her corporate credit card and was fired.
Ms Harrison said: "I believe the investigation was suggested by Tim in the hope I would resign."
She also said that abuse of corporate credit cards was rife in the company and particularly among senior executives.
However, a Seven source has claimed that the alleged fraud was discovered after an independent audit and Ms Harrison's employment was then terminated.
Ms Harrison later repaid $14,000 in personal expenses which she had incurred on the corporate card.
On August 1, 2014, Ms Harrison signed a deed of release with Seven in which she was paid $100,000 which appeared on her group certificate as a bonus.
She said negotiations between the parties failed at the Australian Human Rights Commission in May 2016.
Ms Harrison has since fallen out with her lawyers Harmers over an estimated $150,000 in legal costs.
Ms Harrison has since engaged lawyer Sam Macedone, who for the past few months has been trying to negotiate a settlement between the parties.
The three-way settlement was to include a payment to Ms Harrison of close to $200,000 with $40,000 of that payout going to Harmers.
Fairfax Media understands the settlement negotiations broke down after Seven demanded that all the files relating to the matter be handed to them.
"They have continued to apply unreasonable, wide-reaching and ever-changing demands to the very end and I have nothing left to fight them with now, except the truth," Ms Harrison said.