She says she flagged harassment and a multimillion-dollar compliance risk — then got shown the door
A former manager at CMA CGM claims she was fired for flagging sexual harassment and a costly I-9 compliance mess.
The lawsuit, filed on April 17, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Narasimhan v. CMA CGM (America) LLC, No. 2:26-cv-00383), lands squarely in territory that HR leaders know all too well: a harassment claim that, according to the plaintiff, went unaddressed; a whistleblower angle tied to immigration paperwork; and a termination she says was dressed up as something it wasn't.
Nidhara Narasimhan, a Business Process Manager who joined the CMA CGM group in India in 2017 and transferred to the company's U.S. arm in Norfolk, Virginia in October 2022 on an L1A visa, says she was let go on April 22, 2025 under the vague reasoning of "team dynamics." She tells a very different story. According to her account, the firing capped months of alleged retaliation after she raised concerns about a co-worker's behavior, pushed back on a poor performance review, and flagged what she describes as systemic problems with the company's Form I-9 records.
The harassment claims are serious. Narasimhan alleges that a co-worker, Michael Cerefice, escalated unwelcome conduct after she told him in April 2023 to keep things strictly professional. She describes groping incidents on a business trip and at a company Christmas party, indecent exposure in the office parking lot in late September and early October 2024, an October 2024 incident in which she says he followed her home, and a stream of explicit messages sent through her work cellphone — some, she claims, landing during Microsoft Teams meetings while she was presenting.
For HR readers, the more uncomfortable part may be what she says happened when she reported it. Narasimhan says she emailed HR and management in February, May, June and September 2024. No investigation, no discipline, no separation of the parties, no training, she alleges. At one point, she claims, HR told her to "let it go" because of her visa status — a line that, if proven, would read like a case study in how not to handle a complaint from a sponsored worker.
Then there's the compliance angle. Narasimhan says that while building out an onboarding and offboarding project in 2024, she uncovered widespread I-9 problems — incomplete sections, improper document handling, missing reverifications — and reported them to HR and Legal in November 2024. The company's VP of Legal & Risk Compliance, she says, later credited her work in an email with helping the company avoid a potential $3.6 million fine tied to possible ICE penalties. Instead of thanks from HR, she claims, she got resentment.
She also points to a performance improvement plan issued in August 2024, a poor review in February 2025, and her March 2025 written rebuttal — which she says called out management's handling of her earlier complaints — as the backdrop to her firing weeks later. After her termination, she alleges, the company revoked her approved I-140 immigration petition.
CMA CGM has not yet responded in court, and the allegations have not been tested. Narasimhan is seeking back pay, front pay, and compensatory and punitive damages, and has asked for a jury trial.
