“The settlement brings Steve Easterbrook to account for his clear misconduct, including the way he has taken advantage of his position as CEO,” said McDonald’s chairman Enrique Hernandez Jr. on Thursday.
“The solution avoids lengthy legal proceedings and allows us to go ahead,” said the head of the board of directors.
Easterbrook was inside the company in late 2019 because of a friendly affair dismiss been. The Briton had violated the guidelines of the burger chain. Easterbrook himself admitted a “mistake” at the time.
“Dozen of Nude Photos”
In August 2020, McDonald’s said the CEO had “sexual relations” with three other employees before he was fired. He also gave hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock options to one of the women he was having an affair with. The former CEO “lied” to the company and “destroyed evidence of inappropriate personal behavior”.
McDonald’s sued Easterbrook for this and demanded the return of the severance pay they had received after the dismissal. According to the McDonald’s lawsuit, “dozens of nude, seminude, or sexually explicit photos and videos of multiple women, including photos of these company employees,” were found. Easterbrook had therefore sent the photos from his professional email account to his private email account.
The group argued that if the new information had been known earlier, the company would not have agreed to the contents of the termination agreement. The employment relationship was terminated without any specific misconduct being given as a reason for termination. Because of this, Easterbrook had received a severance payment.
Money and stock options as compensation
The ex-CEO apologized for his behavior on Thursday. He said he sometimes did not adhere to McDonald’s values and “failed to fulfill some of my obligations as the head of the company”.
Easterbrook had received his severance payment in the form of cash and stock options. The current value of the package is McDonald’s with 105 million dollars – around 93 million euros. It’s one of the largest refunds in US corporate history.
Source: Nachrichten
