NatWest Group PLC (LSE:NWG) confirmed that it will pay no more than £1.75 million to former chief executive Alison Rose in the wake of the Nigel Farage furore, not the full £10 million that she might have received.
The board of the 40% state-owned bank said a decision has been made not to pay Rose almost £5 million of unvested share-based awards nor £2.87 million of bonuses or variable remuneration.
The lender's board has decided that only payment of her fixed pay elements will be made for the remainder of her contractual notice period, which will end on 26 July 2024, amounting to £1,748,142 for the remainder of the notice period.
It said that as 'good leaver' status is not applicable, though no finding of misconduct have been made against Rose by the group, that share-based payment due to vest after her notice period ends next July will lapse, currently valued at £4,711,491.
If Rose had remained CEO for the whole of 2023 and all her performance boxes ticked, her maximum bonus pay would have been £2,868,113.
Cumulatively, this means NatWest will not pay Rose a total of £7,579,604, but it will cover her legal fees and outplacement support up to a maximum of £395,000 plus VAT for legal fees and £60,000 plus VAT for outplacement support.
Rose resigned in July, admitting to a “serious error of judgment” in briefing a BBC journalist about the closure of Farage’s bank account at NatWest subsidiary Coutts.
Chairman Howard Davies said the decision had been agreed by mutual consent.
The former CEO has reportedly threatened to sue her former employer if it cancels bonus payments on the back of pressure from Farage.
In August, it was revealed that the bank will pay around £2.4 million to Rose, with a statement explaining that it would still pay her £1.155 million in salary for the year, £1.155 million in NatWest shares, which she will receive over a five-year period, and £115,566 in pension payments – a total of around £2.43 million.
Rose also reportedly accrued unvested share awards worth roughly £5 million, most of which had been awarded since she became chief executive in 2019.
An investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found NatWest guilty of breaching data protection laws when Rose disclosed details about the planned closure of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage's bank accounts to a BBC journalist.
Earlier this week, the ICO apologised for singling out Rose in its investigation and said it was the bank that was under investigation, not the former CEO.