Former Oil Search exec Ayten Saridas’s legal action on verge of settlement

Former Oil Search executive Ayten Saridas’s case against the now Santos-owned company heads back to court on Monday but a settlement could be in the works, The Australian understands.

Ayten Saridas leaving the Federal Court in Sydney in April. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard

A lawsuit brought by former Oil Search executive Ayten Saridas against the company, now owned by Santos, is edging closer to a settlement, The Australian understands, following talks between the two parties ahead of a resumption of the court case on Monday.

Ms Saridas alleges Oil Search breached a contract governing her departure in 2020 after just three months with the fossil fuel giant, an exit she alleges was accelerated by the company’s disparaging behaviour towards her.

Ms Saridas has separately claimed she was forced to leave Oil Search after bullying and harassment by the company’s then-chief executive Dr Keiran Wulff and former chief financial officer Stephen Gardiner after she tried to raise concerns about funding issues.

A resolution would be welcomed by both sides after an increasingly heated public battle.

Oil Search, Mr Wulff and Mr Gardiner deny the claims.

Ms Saridas in April began giving testimony in her bid for compensation, before the case was adjourned. She will resume her account on Monday, with her legal team to detail its case that she was damaged by the company’s behaviour.

In April, during the last round of hearings, a personal friend and colleague of Ms Saridas, Sunil Salhotra, said Oil Search’s former investor relations head Ann Diamant told him in May 2021 that Ms Saridas’s time at the company was an “unmitigated disaster”.

Mr Salhotra, an executive who has worked at Santos and Pangaea Resources, also said Ms Diamant said “basically that she (Ms Saridas) was hired because she was a female”. Under cross-examination by Santos’s barrister, Jeremy Clarke SC, he agreed he could not recall the specific words Ms Diamant used but insisted his recollection of the “tone and context” of the conversation was ­correct.

Wilson’s Advisory credit analyst Craig Brown also gave evidence in April. He said he understood Ms Saridas to be a “highly regarded CFO” but that an analyst from Regal Capital had said he heard Ms Saridas was pushed out of her job at Oil Search and she was “not capable” of working there.

Ms Saridas’s legal team is trying to demonstrate that her reputation was damaged. Ms Saridas said her position became “untenable” due to the conduct of Dr Wulff and Mr Gardiner, who she alleged forced her resignation in a manner that amounted to a “constructive dismissal”, in breach of her employment contract.

Ms Saridas has claimed she has missed out on new jobs because of the behaviour of Oil Search following her departure.

Both Dr Wulff and Mr Gardiner have denied those claims. Dr Wulff left Oil Search in 2021, about a year after Ms Saridas, citing health issues.

Oil Search merged with Santos in a deal worth around $21bn in 2021, with investors urged to accept the offer due to worries Oil Search would not be able to raise the capital needed to deliver its projects without the backing of an even bigger corporation.