Lisa Rundle's new boss, Mike Bryan

A day after announcing the settlement of the sexual harassment suit against Penguin and the former head of Penguin International and Penguin Canada, David Davidar, the company yesterday announced it had hired a replacement for Davidar at Penguin Canada, at least (no one seems to be talking about the fact that Davidar was the head of Penguin International anymore).

As a Globe and Mail story reports, Penguin announced that “it had appointed long-time company executive Mike Bryan – currently president of Penguin India, which Mr. Davidar ran before coming to Toronto — to assume the presidency of its Canadian branch.”

To assuage fears that it would replace Davidar with an outsider (which it did) who wouldn’t care about Canadian literature, the company also announced “the establishment of a new board to bolster its commitment to a native publishing program.” The board will consist of “three Penguin executives and an as-yet unnamed chair.” As the Globe and Mail notes, Penguin preferred to keep the chair a “mystery figure.” Penguin CEO John Mackinson said simply, “We wanted to find ways to demonstrate the commitment we have to publishing in Canada.”

But that wasn’t the bombshell. The bombshell was the news that the company was re-hiring the woman who made the accusations that started it all — Lisa Rundle.

Explained Mackinson, “She wanted to continue to work in the industry and Penguin was the obvious place for her to work. And we had settled all our differences with her as part of the general release of liabilities that was agreed to yesterday.”

What Mackinson didn’t explain was why his company said it never fired her, and she said it did.

Rundle had no comment on that, or anything else, either.