even a trifecta was enough to make our front pages for the last week or so. the saga of royal bank of canada ‘s former cfo, nadine ahn, and her alleged lover, ken mason, have captured the interest and certainly the titillation of corporate canada and beyond.
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this is not, like most dismissal cases, only about how much ahn is entitled to. she was fired for cause without severance for allegedly being in an undisclosed close personal relationship with mr. mason and providing him with a promotion to vice-president and head of capital and term funding — elevating him above long-term peers as well as increasing his compensation without disclosing what would be, if true, a palpable conflict of interest. the case also garnered additional bandwidth because both are married with children.
ahn sued claiming not only that she was wrongfully fired with cause , but that the bank’s allegations were false and the allegations had besmirched her reputation irreparably, preventing her from becoming rbc’s ceo, for which she was a candidate. she claims she did not have an adequate opportunity to respond to the bank’s assertions, which she says were motivated by stereotypical assumptions about male-female friendships.
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in that, she is almost assuredly correct. workplace investigations have become the wild west of employment law with no procedural protections and “investigators” motivated to prove their client’s case against the unsuspecting employee. employees subject to such “investigations” are generally shocked, anxious, deprived of legal counsel and the opportunity to speak to others and are, in my experience, usually eager to please the investigator so that life can, in their minds, return to normal. in reality, that will never be. investigated employees virtually never return to their workplaces and the investigator builds the company’s case hoping the employee simply gives up and resigns to avoid dismissal.
of course, once ahn’s allegations were made public through the lawsuit, rbc had no option but to defend its reputation and argue its case publicly. it is now countersuing ahn for $3.3 million for performance based payments, as well as arguing that she improperly provided mason compensation increases of 58 per cent over two years along with his promotion.
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