Sotera Health Paid $8 Million to Three Lawyers as Woes Mounted

Sotera Health Inc. paid $8.1 million to three law department leaders last year as the lab and sterilization services provider grappled with myriad legal issues.

Alexander Dimitrief, a former general counsel at General Electric Co. who was hired by Sotera in November, received the bulk of that total compensation at more than $5.1 million. Sotera disclosed in a proxy statement that it also paid nearly $1.9 million to Dimitrief’s predecessor, Terrence Hammons Jr., and more than $1 million to former interim legal chief Matthew Klaben.

Sotera agreed to pay $408 million in January to settle more than 870 toxic emissions lawsuits in Illinois and various federal courts related to its Sterigenics subsidiary. That deal came after a jury awarded $363 million last year to a woman suing the medical sterilizer for allegedly causing her breast cancer.

Another lawsuit filed by a Sotera investor in January claims the company misrepresented the ability of its Sterigenics unit to control toxic emissions. That same month a former Sotera executive sued the company and its chief executive, Michael Petras, over forfeited stock.

Petras also worked at GE prior to joining Sotera, which is based in the Cleveland suburb of Broadview Heights, Ohio. Dimitrief, a former litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis, spent more than a dozen years in key legal and executive roles at GE before leaving in 2019.

Dimitrief was part of a group of volunteers that traveled to Ukraine last year to provide assistance to refugees—some of them lawyers—in the war-torn country. Sotera, in announcing his hire, touted Dimitrief’s “deep experience in the governmental, business, and legal realms.”

Dimitrief received a $1.5 million cash bonus to join the company, as well as almost $3.5 million in stock and options awards, according to the April 13 proxy. Hammons received a $500,000 signing bonus after Sotera hired him in 2021. The company said he left for personal reasons as of Oct. 1, 2022. Klaben, who had previously been Sotera’s general counsel, succeeded Hammons.

Klaben is now a deputy general counsel drawing an annual base salary of $303,000, Sotera said. Klaben’s salary was $425,000 in the top legal job. The company also disclosed that former GE lawyer and executive Ann Klee received $322,500 in total compensation last year in her role as a board member.

Sotera also paid about $16,500 to Robert Knauss, a former Munger, Tolles & Olson partner who joined the company’s board in October. Knauss is now a managing director for policy and compliance at Warburg Pincus LLC, a private equity firm that hired him a decade ago as general counsel.

Warburg took Sotera public in a 2020 listing that raised roughly $1.1 billion.