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Lord Browne of Madingley resigned from the board of investment bank Goldman Sachs yesterday, nine days after he admitted lying to the High Court over a homosexual relationship.
His resignation from the bank had been widely expected after it was revealed that he had submitted an untruthful account to the court about how he had met Jeff Chevalier, a 28-year-old Canadian with whom he had a four-year affair, in an attempt to prevent the Mail on Sunday newspaper from publishing an account of the relationship.
Lord Browne, a former chief executive of BP, had been a director of Goldman's since its flotation in 1999.
The bank's chairman and chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, said the former oil chief had made an enormous contribution to Goldman Sachs, approaching every issue with extraordinary business acumen and absolute commitment.
Lord Browne's departure from Goldman Sachs came as BP's sustainability report, featuring a message from Lord Browne against prejudice and bigotry, was issued.
The document reflects on a torrid 12 months for BP, during which it was vilified for safety and environmental failings after the Texas City refinery explosion which killed 15 workers and a series of oil spills in its Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska.
In the report, Lord Browne says: "Great companies will only succeed if they are free of prejudice and bigotry that can limit the development of individuals on the basis of, for example, gender, nationality, race, sexual orientation or age."
But the report shows that the percentage of women and ethnic minorities in "group leadership" positions remained static last year at 17 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.
It discloses a 34 per cent rise in the number of people dismissed last year for unethical behaviour or non-compliance with BP policy - from 478 in 2005 to 642. Of these, 68 per cent were contractors.
The number of BP employees using its internal hotline to raise concerns about unethical behaviour rose by 68 per cent from 634 to 1064.
But BP said this was partly because of a campaign it had run during the year to raise awareness of the service.
- Independent
