Morning Coffee: Married senior banker in alleged affair seen kissing colleague upon exiting elevator. Barclays' hedge fund champion returns to buy-side
If you're having a secret affair with a colleague while married, it probably makes to stand on opposite sides of an elevator and to avoid eye contact. It is also inadvisable to exchange romantic poetry on the office system, or to have a memento of a night out encased in plexiglass like a deal toy and placed in your office.
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After both ex-RBC CFO Nadine Ahn and former RBC VP-in-the-treasury-team Ken Mason denied having an affair and sued their former employer for firing them on the grounds of the alleged secret relationship, RBC has hit back with its reasons for supposing that Ahn and Mason were more than colleagues and more than friends.
Bloomberg reports that RBC's latest filing details how a whistleblower saw the two “hugging and kissing and exiting the elevators” in a hotel proximate to RBC's office. RBC then investigated and discovered messages saying, «I love you,» and «I love you too,” the swapping of romantic poetry, pet names (“Prickly Pear” for Ahn and the inexplicable „KD“ for Mason), and „liquidity meetings“ involve cocktails.
Most damningly, RBC claims to have discovered a filed owned by Mason titled „Project Ken“ on attempts to orchestrate promotions and pay rises for the alleged lover. When another employee questioned Mason's pay rise, Ahn is alleged to have terminated that person without cause.
It's not clear where this leaves Ahn and Mason's marriages, or their attempts to sue RBC for $49m and $20m respectively. Both will presumably provide more evidence to the effect that their affection was platonic. If they fail to do so, they stand to be considerably worse off: RBC wants to claw back Ahn's bonuses and Mason's excess pay, plus costs.
Separately,
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