A C.E.O. Who Resigned in Scandal Now Wants More Money

As chief govt of Wells Fargo, Timothy J. Sloan failed to scrub up a string of scandals that shook the financial institution and abruptly stepped down amid widespread criticism greater than 4 years in the past.

He now says Wells Fargo owes him at the least $34 million in again pay.

Mr. Sloan sued Wells Fargo on Friday, saying that the financial institution owed him for unpaid inventory awards, bonuses and unspecified “emotional misery.” His attorneys mentioned that the financial institution he previously led made him a scapegoat for issues that predated his tenure, and so they recast his resignation beneath hearth in 2019 as “an act of additional loyalty to the financial institution.”

The lawsuit was a shock transfer, inasmuch as Wells Fargo for years has been attempting to maneuver on from Mr. Sloan’s tenure and enhance its relationship with each prospects and regulators.

A Wells Fargo spokeswoman, Beth Richek, mentioned the financial institution stood behind its choice to withhold the pay. “Compensation selections are primarily based on efficiency,” she mentioned in a press release.

As soon as considered certainly one of America’s greatest banks, Wells Fargo made headlines in 2016 after federal regulators revealed that it had put a lot stress on its staff to wring extra money out of shoppers, the staff secretly opened thousands and thousands of pretend accounts in buyer names and tricked them into shopping for pointless merchandise. Regulators mentioned the practices dated again to 2011.

The financial institution paid greater than $1.5 billion in penalties to federal and state authorities, and $620 million to resolve lawsuits from prospects and shareholders.

In 2018, the Federal Reserve pressured the financial institution to clamp down on its development till it made adjustments to its tradition.

Mr. Sloan, who took excessive job on the financial institution in 2016 with a mandate to scrub it up, abruptly resigned in 2019, shortly after he was roundly attacked for his testimony defending his work on Capitol Hill. Requested by a congressman whether or not Wells Fargo may promise that it might now not hurt prospects, he punted, saying, “I can’t promise you perfection.”

Mr. Sloan’s lawsuit says he didn’t negotiate a severance settlement on the time “within the spirit of mutual belief.”