Andrea Orcel wins £58m payout over Santander’s job offer U-turn

Santander has lost its battle with the high-profile banker Andrea Orcel and been ordered to pay him €68m (£58m) for retracting a job offer.

The Spanish lender, which has a large UK branch network, offered the banker its chief executive job in late 2018 after he had spent more than two decades advising Santander. Following talks with the Swiss bank UBS, Mr Orcels employer, Santander later decided not to proceed with the appointment due to the "unacceptable" costs of compensating him for past remuneration from UBS.  According to a ruling seen by Bloomberg, Mr Orcel's contract was valid and the bank broke it by doing a U-turn on the job offer. Mr Orcel pocketed a £17m "golden hello" when he joined UBS in 2013.

Santander's decision in 2019 not to hire Mr Orcel raised eyebrows across the finance industry, as banks routinely buy new hires out of their long-term compensation schemes and should therefore be adept at determining the cost. However, Santander has always insisted that a "rigorous process of ­governance was followed" and that a contract had never been signed, arguing that "an offer letter is not a contract" in Spanish law.

Mr Orcel, who is now the chief executive of the Italian bank UniCredit, has now walked off almost £60m richer after claiming tens of millions in lost pay.

A spokesman for Santander said: "We disagree strongly with the ruling. The board of Santander is confident we will be successful on appeal."

Mandy Peters Solicitors 

Lewisham