Oil and gas executive was ‘pivotal’ even before her contract kicked in, court told

Oil Search CFO-designate Ayten Saridas was so involved in the company’s operations during her onboarding that she helped prepare financial information for investors, a court has heard.

Former Oil Search chief financial officer Ayten Saridas outside the NSW Supreme Court. Picture: Angelica Snowden

Oil Search has denied claims former executive Ayten Saridas made at least 10 disclosures under whistleblower provisions as the ex-chief financial officer-designate claimed two senior executives moved to undermine her amid refinancing talks with lenders, a court has been told.

Ms Saridas has begun legal ­action against Oil Search, alleging that former managing director Keiran Wulff and outgoing chief financial officer Stephen Gardiner harassed her, which eventually forced her resignation.

In the second day of evidence in the NSW Supreme Court, Ms Saridas’s legal counsel presented internal emails purported to show she was already playing a pivotal role in the company before ­ officially joining and took on many responsibilities of a chief ­financial officer.

On Wednesday, Oil Search also opened its case and denied claims that Ms Saridas made at least 10 disclosures to the company under whistleblower provisions in the corporations act.

Barrister for Santos, Jeremy Clarke SC, told the court allegations Ms Saridas made against the company about bullying “should not be considered disclosure” within whistleblowing provisions.

“(The allegations relate to) a personal work-related grievance,” Mr Clarke said.

He argued there was “extremely limited” case law on what qualified as a disclosure, but that an allegation concerned with a personal work-related grievance did not count.

“We don’t accept that it is a disclosure … because upon its objective face there is no case law about this,” he said.

Ms Saridas officially joined Oil Search as chief financial officer-designate in August 2020, and signed a contract that designated her as incoming chief financial ­officer by February 2021 upon Mr Gardiner’s departure.

But Ms Saridas said the two senior male executives quickly moved to undermine her, especially when she tried to raise concerns about disclosures by overstating its available debt funding and how advanced it was in ­refinancing discussions with ­lenders.

Ms Saridas told Dr Wulff and Mr Gardiner in 2020 the company should have made two disclosures to the market but they ignored her, the court was told.

These were that a $600m corporate facility continued to be included in available liquidity, when $400m of that was tied up. And “no distributions” would come from the company’s Papua New Guinea assets in the next 18 months from late 2020.

Santos sealed a $22bn merger with Oil Search in December 2021.

Ms Saridas is suing for damages due to mental anguish and distress, plus costs.

Mr Clarke denied claims that the company breached the law by failing to make disclosures about the true state of its finances to the market. “(There are) no grounds to suspect there was such a breach of the corporations act … the matters relied on were not disclosures at all,” he said.

Ms Saridas’s claim that she was forced to the leave the company after only three months in 2021 was also rejected, and Mr Clarke said a letter dated November 12 of that year demonstrated she “elected” to leave.

He said the “thrust and purpose” of the letter was to say Ms Saridas “wished to exit the company on mutually acceptable terms and minimum disruption”.

“We don’t say the plaintiff was sacked … we say it is the opposite,” he said.

The case is expected to run beyond its allotted six days, after the court was told on Tuesday that Ms Saridas’s legal team sought to introduce a fresh affidavit without notice.

In response, NSW Supreme Court judge Monika Schmidt told the parties the court would not allow “litigation by ambush”.

“I’ve been driving the preparation of this thing quite hard for a considerable time. Dates allocated on assurance that parties were ready,” she said.

The case continues.