An author submitted part of his PhD thesis as a paper. The section editor of the journal asked the PhD supervisor to review the paper. This induced a very heated response from the reviewer who made various claims regarding the paper:
The author does not credit one of the tests he uses in his work
There is no proper acknowledgement of co-workers who perhaps should have been co-authors (including the reviewer himself).
The manuscript is similar to others—one published with the reviewer’s name but without his consent
The author is taking credit for work done by others—most notably the reviewer
The author has refuted many, if not all, of the allegations
What should the editor do now? He has invited advice from the university who awarded the PhD, but is not sure what standpoint the university will take, particularly if there is any allegation of misconduct at a scientific level which can be supported by hard evidence. At the moment, the editor is inclined to go ahead with publication and call the reviewer’s bluff. However, this might be expensive in litigation.
COPE advises the editor to back off this one and let the university sort it out. The editor should certainly not publish the paper or do anything further until the university reaches a judgement.
The editor informed COPE that the reviewer who had complained about the author plagiarising his work had backed down. The paper was re-reviewed in the normal way.