TEWKSBURY, Mass. — Arthur T. Demoulas has been removed as president and CEO of the Tewksbury-based Market Basket grocery store chain, months after he was suspended over allegations that he had been considering leading a work stoppage.
Market Basket board chair Jay K. Hachigian announced in a statement shared with Boston 25 News on Wednesday that Demoulas was fired from his position after an “unsuccessful” mediation session in Delaware last week and a failed follow-up video conference on Tuesday.
“Despite extensive efforts by the board and Mr. Demoulas to come to terms, the mediation was not successful. The Market Basket board late yesterday voted unanimously to remove Arthur T. Demoulas as president and CEO of Market Basket,” Hachigian said in the statement. “The board has filed an action in the Delaware Court of Chancery in connection with the removal.”
Market Basket shared a copy of the Delaware filing with Boston 25 News, which stated that Demoulas “forced the board to choose between accepting his autocratic control of Market Basket or terminating him in order to protect a vibrant and growing business that cannot flourish over the long-term under the leadership of a dictator.”
In the filing, the board members also claimed that up through his termination late Tuesday, Demoulas had been “exercising his own unfettered discretion as to virtually every important decision at the company, while ignoring and stonewalling the Market Basket board.”
Additionally, Demoulas acted as if he were the sole owner of the company for years, despite owning 28.4% of the company’s outstanding stock, according to the filing.
“As Mr. Demoulas has said, ‘There’s only one boss in the company. There’s not two. There’s not three. There’s not five,’” the filing stated. ”Demoulas has acted as if he were the sole owner of the company and rejected any form of even the most basic oversight by the board."
Read the full complaint:
“Arthur T. Demoulas is deeply disappointed that mediation failed despite his very determined efforts to reach a resolution,” said Justine Griffin, Mr. Demoulas’ spokesperson. “Over time, it became clear to us that this was not a good faith effort by the board or his sisters to reach agreement on the issues created by their abrupt actions, placing Arthur T. Demoulas, his family, and members of his senior management team on leave,” she added. “It is now crystal clear that they had no intention of reinstating Mr. Demoulas.”
She continued to say, “On May 28, the Board’s actions are a farcical cover-up for a coup. The so-called investigation was designed from the start to falsely tarnish the reputation of Mr. Demoulas and his leadership team. Mediation has now demonstrated that to be true. These three board members and the sisters who elected them have removed the senior leadership of the company and all independent board members. All of this is in clear violation of their fiduciary duty – they took a company that was operating at peak performance and recklessly threw it into turmoil, and did so in a needlessly public manner and on baseless grounds fabricated from the start."
“Their predetermined actions are further made clear by the fact that they fired Mr. Demoulas in a 10:30 p.m. board meeting last night, without providing him any meaningful opportunity to be heard, in violation of the company bylaws,” she added.
Hachigian assured Market Basket workers and shoppers that the chain will not change its operations in the wake of Demoulas’ departure.
“Market Basket will not change its operations, profit-sharing, bonuses, or culture, and will continue to offer the best groceries at the lowest prices anywhere in New England, well into the future,” Hachigian said.
Demoulas, the longtime CEO of Market Basket, was put on leave in May after the company’s board accused him of planning a work stoppage.
In recent weeks, several other executives loyal to Demoulas have also been fired, including Joseph Schmidt and Tom Gordon, who were both banned from setting foot on the grocery store chain’s property.
Schmidt and Gordon called their firings a “pre-planned coup” spearheaded by the Demoulas sisters, who are majority shareholders in Market Basket.
The three Demoulas sisters, Frances Kettenbach, Glorianne Demoulas Farnham, and Caren Demoulas Pasquale, later voted to oust longtime board member Bill Shea, their brother’s last remaining ally.
The company’s board placed Demoulason on paid administrative leave on May 28 over allegations that he had been planning to disrupt operations at the grocery giant’s 90 locations by leading a work stoppage involving the chain’s 30,000 employees.
Hachigian, Steven Collins, and Michael Keyes are the only remaining board members, all of whom were appointed by the three Demoulas sisters.
Demoulas’ latest firing comes 10 years after he was fired by a board controlled by Arthur S. Demoulas, his cousin and rival. After being sacked, store workers staged a walkout in support of Arthur T. that lasted six weeks.
To protest, hundreds of warehouse workers and drivers refused to deliver fresh produce, leaving shelves depleted. Not only did the workers stick together, but customers soon followed by boycotting the stores in solidarity.
Customers began to shop elsewhere because they couldn’t find fresh food at Market Basket, while others stayed away in a show of support for workers and Arthur T. The usually crowded stores turned into ghost towns, with only a trickle of customers coming in.
After weeks of pressure from suppliers suffering lost revenue, and the governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire getting involved in work negotiations, the company announced that an agreement had been reached for Arthur T. to pay $1.6 billion for the 50.5 percent share of the company owned by Arthur S. and other family members.
“Throughout this ordeal, Mr. Demoulas has remained committed to his single goal – to return to Market Basket to work alongside the 32,000 Associates. That has been his sole focus since the unwarranted actions of May 28 and remains his focus today. He knew that there was a path to resolution, and he was confident that if the board shared these priorities, agreement could be reached. That is why the failure of mediation is so deeply disappointing to Mr. Demoulas. He firmly believed that there was a way. That proved not to be true."
“Mr. Demoulas’ passion for the company and his care for the associates remains unchanged,” Griffin ended with.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
©2025 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/7QOJU3BNCJERBNKJC5LWTBYFLU.png)
