Oil giant BP says it has dismissed former chief Bernard Looney for failing to disclose past relationships with colleagues, meaning he will lose out on £32.4 million in pay, share awards and cash bonuses.
Following a three month review after Mr Looney resigned in September, admitting he had not been "fully transparent" with the board of directors, Mr Looney has been formally fired. This means Mr Looney's 12-month notice period ended today with immediate effect.
“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.
READ MORE: BP: Climate strategy under scrutiny as Looney resigns
“The board has determined that this amounts to serious misconduct, and as such Mr Looney has been dismissed without notice effective on 13 December 2023.”
Mr Looney will receive no further salary, pension allowance or other benefits and he will not be paid any annual bonus in respect of the financial year 2023. He will also be required to repay half of the cash portion of his annual bonus for the 2022 financial year – totalling £420,000 – and a portion of his share awards that vested in August 2023 from a performance incentive plan covering the years from 2020 to 2022.
The board received a first set of allegations about Mr Looney’s conduct in May 2022, after which he acknowledged "a small number of historical relationships" with colleagues prior to becoming chief executive in 2020. He also assured the board in writing that there was nothing further to disclose.
The most recent allegations were made in September by a female BP whistleblower who identified further past relationships that were not previously disclosed. At that time, the board launched an investigation into the allegations with the support of external counsel and said it would take a decision about Mr Looney's remuneration at a later date.
BP said 87% of the £32.4m had been “automatically forfeited” when Mr Looney resigned, but 10% was related to the board’s decision that his misconduct was serious enough to justify firing him. A further 3% is being clawed back at the board’s discretion.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel