BP clawing back $40M from ex-CEO Bernard Looney who had relationships with colleagues
BP on Wednesday said it will claw back up to $40.59 million in pay from ousted CEO Bernard Looney after the British oil giant concluded he “knowingly misled” the board regarding personal relationships with colleagues.
The company said it dismissed Looney without notice, effective immediately, and noted that he will not receive further salary or benefits from the dismissal date, nor will he be paid an annual bonus for fiscal 2023.
“Following careful consideration, the board has concluded that, in providing inaccurate and incomplete assurances in July 2022, Mr. Looney knowingly misled the board,” BP said in a statement.
Looney resigned in September with immediate effect after less than four years in the role for failing to fully disclose his own personal entanglements in the office.
BP said the multimillion-dollar sum Looney will have to forfeit is primarily unvested share awards, plus $1.25 million under a “discretionary clawback” and the roughly $4 million in “maximum potential annual bonus payment for the 2023 financial year.”
The Post has sought comment from Looney and BP.
Looney, 53, became CEO in February 2020 with a vow to reinvent the 114-year-old company, laying out ambitious plans for the British energy giant to achieve zero net emissions by 2050, and to invest billions in renewable and low-carbon power.
However, his ambitions were overshadowed by rumored relationships with co-workers.
BP’s board had already investigated these claims in May 2022. During that review, Looney disclosed “a small number of historical relationships with colleagues prior to becoming CEO.”
The board shrugged off the allegations at the time, saying that there was no breach of the company’s code of conduct. The board also said it was given assurances by Looney last year “regarding disclosure of past personal relationships, as well as his future behavior.”
When similar allegations of the boss’ in-office tie-ups surfaced again recently, Looney stepped away from his position, admitting at the time that he had not fully disclosed all the details of his relationships.
Chief Financial Officer Murray Auchincloss has been acting as interim CEO since September while the oil firm searches for Looney’s successor.
Auchincloss, 52, is also “in a longstanding relationship, and his partner also works in BP,” a company spokesperson confirmed to The Post when the change of hands took place.
Unlike Looney, however, Auchincloss’s office romance “has been fully and appropriately disclosed within BP, including through his recruitment as CFO almost four years ago,” the spokesperson added.
“As his partner, she is identified as ‘a person closely associated with’ Murray under disclosure regulations,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “And so her transactions in BP shares are fully and appropriately reported to the London Stock Exchange.”
BP’s code of conduct does not outright ban relationships between staffers, though it advises employees to “proactively manage conflicts of interest,” which can include “having an intimate relationship with someone whose pay, advancement or management you can influence.”
With Post wires