Former BP CEO Bernard Looney will forfeit up to £32.4 million in earnings, the company has said, after he resigned in scandal earlier this year.
In a shock to the market, the London-listed supermajor said in September that Looney had resigned after allegations around personal relationships with colleagues and misleading the BP board.
Questions have lingered over his remuneration package, and BP (LON: BP) has today said Looney’s “serious misconduct” means he has now been dismissed without notice, effective December 13.
It will see him forfeit potential total remuneration of up to £32.4m, of which 87% was automatically forfeited as a result of his resignation on 12 September.
The total covers unvested share awards – which will lapse in full – as part of BP’s Executive Directors’ Incentive Plan for years through to 2025, with a potential value of up to £24.8m.
In line with BP policy, the energy giant said Looney will receive no further salary, pension allowance or benefits and will not be paid any annual bonus for 2023.
In a statement, BP said: “Following careful consideration, the board has concluded that, in providing inaccurate and incomplete assurances in July 2022, Mr Looney knowingly misled the board.
“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. This decision had the effect of bringing Mr Looney’s 12 month notice period to an immediate end.”
The overall sum includes £1.2m in salary and pensions, £3.2m in potential bonus payments for 2023, and another £2m in unvested bonus awards from 2021 and 2022, among other items.
In his first comments since his resignation in September and carried by the FT, Mr Looney said he was “disappointed with the way the situation has been handled”, but was proud of his tenure as chief executive.
“It has been an extraordinary privilege to have served a great company for over 32 years, not least because of the incredible people with whom I have had the opportunity to work.
“As I look to the future, I want to simply wish everyone at BP all the very best.”
Looney is the third of four recent BP CEOs to step down in scandal after Tony Hayward bowed to pressure in 2010 over his handling of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and John Browne exited in 2007 after lying to a court about a relationship.
Bob Dudley led BP for nine years without scandal, after which Bernard Looney was named his replacement in 2019.
The hunt is on to find the BP CEO’s replacement, which the major hiring executive search firm Egon Zehnder International.
Analysts have pointed to interim CEO Murray Auchincloss, previously its CFO, as a potential full-time successor for Looney.
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