[1/2]Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan testifies earlier than a Home Monetary Companies Committee listening to titled: “Holding Megabanks Accountable: An Examination of Wells Fargo’s Sample of Client Abuses” in Washington, U.S. March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Erin Scott/File Photograph Purchase Licensing Rights
Dec 1 (Reuters) – Former Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) CEO Tim Sloan filed a lawsuit on Friday accusing the financial institution of failing to pay him greater than $34 million after he resigned in 2019 amid a wide-ranging gross sales practices scandal.
Sloan within the lawsuit filed in California state courtroom says Wells Fargo canceled inventory awards and withheld a bonus he had earned earlier than stepping down.
Wells Fargo in a press release stated that “compensation selections are primarily based on efficiency, and we stand by our selections on this matter.”
Sloan led Wells Fargo from 2016 to 2019, when he turned the second chief govt to step down over claims that the financial institution had opened thousands and thousands of unauthorized client accounts.
Wells Fargo in 2020 agreed to pay $3 billion to resolve prison and civil probes into the claims, and one other $1 billion earlier this 12 months in a lawsuit by shareholders. The financial institution admitted that between 2002 and 2016 it pressured workers to fulfill unrealistic gross sales objectives that led them to open pretend accounts.
The scandal drew scrutiny from shareholders and authorities officers and led the Federal Reserve in 2018 to order Wells Fargo to maintain its property under $1.95 trillion till it had improved its governance and danger controls. That cap remains to be in place.
In Friday’s lawsuit, Sloan stated he was not liable for the scandal, which started shortly earlier than he took over as CEO, however was made a scapegoat by its board of administrators and compelled to resign.
“To today, Wells Fargo has did not establish something Mr. Sloan did or failed to do this would justify its resolution,” Sloan’s legal professionals wrote within the criticism.
On the time he resigned, Sloan had stated that he determined to depart as a result of the give attention to him had change into a distraction inhibiting the financial institution from shifting ahead.
Sloan accused Wells Fargo of breach of contract and, together with the $34 million, is searching for unspecified damages for emotional misery and punitive damages.
Sloan’s San Francisco-based lawyer, David Lowe, has introduced quite a lot of high-profile employment lawsuits in recent times, together with a collection of sexual harassment instances by feminine Tesla Inc workers.
He additionally represented former Pinterest COO Francoise Brougher in a lawsuit claiming she was fired for complaining about intercourse discrimination on the firm. Pinterest, which denied wrongdoing, settled the case for $22.5 million in 2020.
Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; enhancing by Diane Craft
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