After ousting BP CEO Bernard Looney after failing to disclose personal relationships at work, the $100 billion oil giant isn’t taking another chance on its lovestruck managers.
In an email circulated to staff last week, BP told employees they were now required to disclose all “familial and intimate relationships at work” or face following Looney out the door, Reuters first reported.
To avoid an embarrassing repeat of the Looney situation, BP has also updated its code of conduct, which “prohibits employees from directly or indirectly managing relatives or those with whom they're in an intimate relationship.”
Previously, employees were only required to disclose relationships if there was a chance it created a conflict of interest.
Now, however, BP’s top 4,500 managers have been given three months to report all intimate relationships they have engaged in in the last three years, The Guardian reported. That length of time might reopen some old wounds for BP employees.
A representative for BP told Fortune that starting June 1, staff would be forced to disclose personal relationships “whether or not they feel they represent a conflict of interest.
“As a policy that forms part of BP’s code of conduct, non-compliance with the policy could result in disciplinary action,” the spokesperson added.
BP's Looney hangover
Some seven months after ending Looney’s three-year tenure at the top of BP, the group continues to deal with the after-effects of his messy departure.
Looney abruptly stepped down as BP boss in September last year after the company said he “was not fully transparent” about his past relationships with colleagues. He allegedly failed to disclose several past relationships with BP employees prior to an investigation into his conduct.
Staff allege Looney’s behavior was well-known and discussed privately for years.
The former boss was also accused of promoting women with whom he had intimate relationships before he became CEO, the Financial Times reported.
Looney was formally sacked in December and forfeited as much as $40.6 million in pay following his dismissal, including some of his salary, bonus, and pension allowance, after the BP board determined his actions amounted to “serious misconduct.”
While BP’s move to tighten its conduct rules is invariably tied to Looney’s behavior, it does appear to reinforce a trend of more hawkishness from employers towards workplace romances.
Last year, U.K. broadcaster ITV drew up strict new conduct rules that reportedly required staff to disclose all sexual relationships and even friendships they had with colleagues.
Like BP, the broadcaster had its own historical motivations to launch the policy review. Former This Morning presenter Philip Schofield was forced to resign after admitting to having an affair with one of his colleagues while working at the company.
