CPA Australia's board clandestinely increased the termination period for its chief executive, Alex Malley, a few months after a campaign against him began, a decision that later forced the accountants' union to pay him $4.9 million when he was finally fired this year.

Even though an independent review found in February, 2015, that Mr Malley's two-year notice period was overly generous, the board decided in the following October to increase it to three years.