Boss, director of Australia's AMP, leave amid mess in handling sex harassment claims

 Australian wealth manager AMP Ltd said chairman David Murray has resigned, effective immediately, as has AMP director, and former treasury secretary, John Fraser.

The financial services company has been rocked by a series of sexual harassment complaints affecting senior managers, with allegations the company and its board of directors failed to handle them appropriately, ABC News reports.

The recently appointed head of AMP Capital, Boe Pahari, is also stepping down from that role, effective immediately.

Pahari will resume work at his previous level with the company.

AMP's chief executive, Francesco De Ferrari, will assume leadership of the AMP Capital business for the time being while the company searches for a permanent replacement for Pahari.

AMP said the resignations of  Murray and Fraser, and the demotion of Pahari, are in response to feedback from some major shareholders about the initial promotion of Pahari to head one of the company's main business units despite a previous sexual harassment allegation against him.

Murray said he and the rest of the board had always treated the harassment complaint against Pahari seriously.

"My view remains that it was dealt with appropriately in 2017 and Mr Pahari was penalised accordingly," he said in a statement.

"Although the board's decision on the appointment was unanimous, my decision to leave reflects my role and accountability as chairman of the board and the need to protect continuity of management, the strategy and, to the extent possible, the board."

Murray is replaced by current AMP director Debra Hazelton, who has been on the board since June 2019 and has more than 30 years' experience in the financial services sector.

Shareholder pressure appears to have been the undoing of Murray and  Fraser, with major investors concerned about the judgement involved in Pahari's initial promotion, which was approved by the AMP board.

The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility's chair, Brynn O'Brien, said she was not surprised by Murray's departure, given his views on a range of other social and environmental issues.

"ACCR has always questioned the suitability of David Murray for chair of a modern ASX50 company," she commented in a statement.

"Murray is a well-known climate sceptic. He waged a war against the ASX's inclusion of 'social licence' in its Corporate Governance Principles. It is quite ironic that AMP's catastrophic social licence issues ultimately brought him down.

"His views on risk and governance frameworks are stuck in the '80s and do not meet shareholder expectations of modern boards."-Photo: ABC News