QBE sets new standard over office romances with CEO's $550,000 pay cut

David Marin-Guzman, Lucille Keen and Alice Uribe

Updated Feb 27, 2017 – 7.09pm, first published at 2.37pm

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The board of QBE, one of the top ASX100 companies, has set a new standard on executive accountability in the workplace by stripping its chief executive John Neal of more than half a million dollars for not telling the board he was in a relationship with his executive assistant.

The incident, revealed in the companies' annual report released on Monday, overshadowed the insurer's strong results, which saw full-year net profit rise 5 per cent to $US844 million ($1.1 billion), return on equity of 8.1 per cent and the final dividend up 10 per cent to 33¢ a share.

David Marin-Guzman writes about industrial relations, workplace, policy and leadership from Sydney.

Lucille Keen writes on News specialising in Politics, Policy, Industrial Relations. Based in our Melbourne newsroom, Lucille has over six years experience as journalist.

Alice Uribe writes on Financial Services and Insurance