The former chief financial officer of Royal Bank of Canada on Thursday sued the bank for wrongful termination, seeking about C$48.9 million (US$35.6 million) in salary and damages.
Nadine Ann is a banker Fired in April She said she may have missed out on an opportunity to run the bank because of her “undisclosed intimate personal relationships with other employees,” according to the lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court. Bloomberg saw.
Additionally, according to the lawsuit, Ahn alleged that the bank misrepresented her friendship with another RBC executive, Ken Mason, who was fired the same day.
Mason also sued the bank, seeking more than C$20 million in compensation and damages.
“These allegations are without merit and we will vigorously defend them in court,” RBC spokesperson Gillian McArdle said in a statement to CFO Dive. “We conducted a thorough review in our investigation with our external legal counsel, and the facts are abundantly clear, based on the irrefutable evidence collected during the investigation, that there were significant violations of our code of conduct.”
Mason argued in his lawsuit that if he and Ann were of the same sex, their friendship would not have sparked an investigation.
“RBC is [Mason] “They unfairly and publicly humiliated them in order to create the appearance of moral rectitude and swift investigation and punishment of perceived corruption,” the lawsuit said. According to Bloomberg.
At issue for the bank is the perception that Mr Ang’s relationship with Mr Mason “led to preferential treatment” for Mr Mason, who was promoted to vice president and head of capital and long-term financing in November last year.
RBC employees reported the situation to the bank in March using a confidential internal channel known as “Speak Up,” according to three sources. The Globe and Mail.
Rumors had been circulating about Ahn’s relationship with Mason for some time, people familiar with the matter told the paper, but scrutiny intensified after the bank announced personnel changes within its finance department, promoting Mason above a long-time colleague, The Globe and Mail reported.
As chief financial officer, Ahn controls compensation and promotions within the finance department, and he also used his position to expand Mason’s role and lead to a pay raise when executives left the division, two of the sources said.
Ang said in her filing that she and Mason had been friends since around 2013, before she became CFO. She argued that RBC’s code of conduct did not require Ang to disclose her workplace friendships, adding that her “friendship with Mason was not concealed from RBC at all.”
Mason said in the filing that the bank Announcement of dismissalbut Mason’s name does not appear in it.
“The clear implication of RBC’s statement is that [Mason] Anne was having an affair; [he] “As a result, they gained career advancement and financial advantage,” Mason’s lawsuit states. “The insinuation is false and defamatory.”
Mason also said in his lawsuit that Ang’s firing was a “discriminatory and biased failure by RBC.” [that] “This incident has ended the career of a woman who was a candidate to become RBC’s first female chief executive officer and has caused significant professional harm to Ms. Mason, a loyal, long-term employee of RBC, as well as personal and family embarrassment and privacy damage.”
In the filing, Ahn also noted that he had been “identified by RBC as a potential successor to CEO” and that he “maintained a clean employment record.”
“During her 25 years of employment with RBC, Anne has proven herself to be a loyal, trustworthy and exceptionally talented leader, overcoming numerous gender-based obstacles during her employment,” her lawsuit states.
Currently, three of RBC’s nine senior executives are women, according to Bloomberg. When Erika Nielsen takes over as head of consumer banking on Sept. 1, she will be the only woman to head one of the bank’s major business units, the news agency noted.
According to Ang’s court filings, RBC CEO Dave MacKay sent a text message on the evening of April 4 asking Ang to attend a meeting the following morning.
When she arrived, McKay was not there, but outside counsel and representatives from the bank’s employee relations group met with her. Her laptop and cell phone were confiscated and the two-hour meeting “took the form of an interrogation,” according to her filing.
Mr. Mason was also called into a meeting with Graham Hepworth, RBC’s chief risk officer, on April 5, his filing said. The circumstances were similar to Mr. Ang’s description: Hepworth was not there when Mr. Mason arrived, and the filing said he was questioned for around two hours by outside lawyers and members of RBC’s employee relations group.
The filing said the lawyers “bombarded Ken with outrageous, damaging, injurious and unfounded allegations based on an anonymous complaint that Ken and Ann had engaged in an inappropriate personal relationship.” Mason charged in the lawsuit that the meeting was “unfair, biased and procedurally flawed.”
Mason was told he would be suspended, but was fired a few hours later, he claims in his lawsuit.
“Our longstanding friendship and working relationship was falsely portrayed by the anonymous accuser and RBC,” Mason’s lawsuit states.
In his lawsuit, Ang called the move a “catastrophic” error on RBC’s part, adding that he had suffered “obvious reputational damage” and “public humiliation” over the matter.
“RBC investigators accused Ahn of giving preferential treatment to Mason and insinuating that they were engaged in an extramarital affair,” Ahn’s lawsuit states. “Ahn asserts that RBC’s allegations are demonstrably false.”
