Santander has rescinded the appointment of Alexsandro Broedel Lopes as its new chief accountant and has instead selected Manuel Preto for the position, according to an internal memo from the Spanish bank seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
Broedel, who was initially set to assume his role at Santander this month, is currently involved in a legal dispute with his former employer, Brazilian bank Itaú Unibanco, which has accused Broedel of misappropriating funds during his tenure at the bank.
Broedel declined to comment. His representatives had previously stated that their client denies any wrongdoing.
A person familiar with the matter previously told Reuters that Santander had decided not to move forward with Broedel. Santander declined to comment on Broedel and did not mention him in the internal memo.
The executive, whom Santander hired last year, was expected to replace the current chief accountant, José Doncel.
The bank stated in the memo that Preto will succeed Doncel, with his appointment effective July 31.
Preto joined Santander in 1996 and has held several leadership roles at Santander Portugal and at the group level. Since 2019, he has served as deputy CEO, chief financial officer, and head of strategy at Santander Portugal, the bank said in the note.
Santander's decision comes after Itaú, Latin America's largest private bank, dropped a lawsuit against a former consultant but said this week it would continue its legal action against Broedel.
Itaú alleges that the consultant, in collaboration with Broedel, violated the bank's policies by making irregular payments for consulting reports.
This is not the first time Santander has been forced to reverse the appointment of a senior executive.
In one of the banking sector's most high-profile pay disputes, Italian banker Andrea Orcel and Santander ended up in court after Spain's largest bank abandoned plans to appoint the former UBS investment banker as its CEO in January 2019.
On Monday, Itaú confirmed it had reached a settlement with Eliseu Martins, under which the consultant agreed to pay an additional 2.5 million reais ($440,000) to the bank, bringing the total amount returned to 4 million reais.
According to the settlement, which Reuters reviewed, Martins stated that Broedel was his de facto business partner, collaborating on certain consulting assignments and accounting reports, and receiving 40% of the revenue generated by those services.
(Reporting by Jesús Aguado in Madrid and Andrés González in London; additional reporting by Luciana Novaes Magalhães in São Paulo; editing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes, Alexandra Hudson, and Bill Berkrot; Spanish editing by Benjamín Mejías Valencia)
