Employee was fired for alleged intimate relationship with former CFO
The man who is alleged to have been in an undisclosed romantic relationship with former RBC chief financial officer Nadine Ahn is being sued by the banking group.
RBC filed a countersuit last Friday against Ken Mason who worked in its treasury department until he, along with the bank’s former CFO, were fired in April for activity that was said to have violated the firm’s code of conduct.
BNN Bloomberg reports that both Ahn and Mason are suing RBC for wrongful dismissal but the defence and countersuit statement issued by the bank last week alleges that the duo were involved in an intimate relationship for more than a decade.
The statement suggests that Mason used the alleged relationship to enhance his career.
“To Mr. Mason’s knowledge, and at his urging, Ms. Ahn misused her power as CFO to bestow significant compensation increases and, ultimately, an executive-level promotion upon Mr. Mason, as part of a ‘Project Ken’ the two were pursuing together while in an undisclosed close personal relationship,” said the bank’s statement.
The allegations have not been proven in court and both Ahn and Mason have denied the accusations and say that their relationship was one of friends. Ahn’s lawsuit against RBC says that she was subjected to “palpable reputational harm” and “public humiliation” by her dismissal; Mason has questioned whether the same conclusions about the relationship would have been reached if it involved two men.
The lawsuits involve multi-million-dollar claims with Ahn seeking $50 million in compensation, Mason seeking $20 million, and RBC aiming to reclaim compensation paid to Mason which its says was excessive (a 70% increase during Ahn’s tenure as CFO) and only facilitated by the alleged relationship.
