Former BP CEO Bernard Looney lost £32.4 million ($40.6 million) in payouts after resigning. Bloomberg reports.
In September, 53-year-old Looney was forced to resign for not fully disclosing details of past personal relationships with colleagues.
“Mr. Looney knowingly misled the board of directors. The board of directors considered this to be serious misconduct,” the company said in a statement.
The former head of BP will not receive a salary, pension or bonus for the 2023 financial year from the date of his resignation, the company reported. Part of Looney’s potential £32.4 million remuneration was automatically forfeited immediately following his sacking. BP will also withdraw 50% of the cash bonus paid to the former CEO in 2022, as well as part of the shares transferred to him, totaling about £1 million ($1.3 million). Looney was paid £10 million ($12.6 million) last year.
Looney resigned after 32 years at BP, including three years as CEO. “He did not provide details of the full relationship and accepts that he had an obligation to make more full disclosure. The company has strong values and the board expects everyone in the company to behave in accordance with these values,” BP said in a statement.
In 2022, the head of the company was already investigated in connection with his past personal relationships with colleagues, but then no violations of the code of conduct were revealed. The company’s former chief financial officer, Murray Ashinkloss, has become BP’s acting CEO.
RBC news agency, 09.30.2023, “The Ninja Turtle from BP was accused of promoting women because of affairs”: Code of Conduct for BP Employees (.pdf) does not prohibit employees from having personal relationships, but does note them as a potential conflict of interest. The document states that “a conflict of interest may arise when your interests or activities affect or appear to affect your ability to make objective decisions for BP.” This situation could include “an intimate relationship with someone whose salary, promotion, or management you can influence.”
BP management already initiated a review of Looney’s personal connections in May 2022; in September, he reported four past relationships and assured the board of directors in writing that he had nothing to hide, FT interlocutors told. The investigation did not reveal a conflict of interest violation. However, a year and a half later, in September 2023, the company received evidence, after which Looney admitted that he had hidden some relationships. […] BP has significantly increased the number of women in senior positions in recent years. Seven of the 11 executives are female; in 2019, their number was two out of 13. In total, the company has 300 senior management positions, about a third of them are held by women. — Insert K.ru
The Financial Times wrotethat Looney’s resignation is related to accusations of promoting female colleagues after romantic relationships with them, which he kept silent about after his appointment as head of the company.
Looney, 53, is an Irishman who has worked at BP since 1991, his entire career, which began as an engineer. He was appointed to the post of head of the company on July 1, 2020.
Since heading BP, Looney has been a strong advocate for a faster transition to low-carbon energy. This was reflected in plans to reduce oil production and develop technologies in the field of electric vehicles. As Bloomberg noted, BP shares have become lower since Looney became CEO compared to shares of competing companies, including the impact of the energy crisis in Europe.
The agency also indicated that with Looney’s departure from the company, the era of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” leadership at BP would end—that’s what they said about the former CEO’s assistants John Brown (1995–2007). As Brown explained in his memoirs, they were so named because they had the ability to quickly appear “whenever they were needed.”