Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) is in the news this week for more than this morning's $6 billion share buyback announcement.
In a less fortuitous turn of events, CBA group governance executive general manager Kara Nicholls is suing the bank.
Why is CBA facing a lawsuit?
According to Nicholls, CBA's governance team has long been understaffed and overworked which has led to an excessively high turnover rate in the department.
Nicholls says she sounded the alarm to her superiors on numerous occasions but little to no action was taken to rectify the situation.
Now she's facing the loss of her job and is suing CBA, as the Australian Financial Review reports, for "allegedly seeking to fire her last week in response to 'whistleblower' complaints she made to senior officers and chairman Catherine Livingstone about the bank's failure to respond to repeated warnings on understaffing and workers' safety".
The Federal Court claim alleges:
The [bank] acted with conscious and contumelious disregard of the rights and interests of Ms Nicholls, and of the rights and interests of employees in the group governance team, including by way of raising legitimate concerns as to workplace health, safety, culture and resources.
CBA's spokesperson noted that the bank won't be commenting on the matter as it's currently before the Federal Court. They said the bank "takes any concerns raised by its current or former employees very seriously".
How has CommBank been performing?
The new pending lawsuit aside, CBA shareholders have largely enjoyed a stellar 12 months.
CBA's share price has gained 43% since this time last year, almost twice the 23% gains posted by the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) over that same time.
CBA has also maintained its dividend payments throughout the COVID-19 pandemic turmoil. At the current price of $106.56 per share, CBA pays a dividend yield of 2.39%, fully franked.
