Despite the subsidy affair: The former top management of the railway company BLS can keep their bonuses. The company sees no way of demanding contractually guaranteed variable remuneration retrospectively, the BLS confirmed a report in the “Berner Zeitung” and “Bund” on Wednesday upon request.
The railway company BLS has been criticized for having received excessive subsidies from the federal government for years. The talk is of over 70 million francs. This would also have made it easier to achieve the financial targets, on which the bonuses of the top management were partly dependent.
BLS boss Guillelmon received 100,000 francs
Most recently, the financial targets made up around 17 percent of the variable wage components. The remaining components were qualitative goals such as developing business models or managing employees.
In total, BLS boss Bernhard Guillelmon has received around 100,000 francs per year since 2012, the members of the executive board on average around half. The Bern traffic director Christoph Neuhaus had asked that the BLS should check whether they could reclaim bonuses from the managers at the time, headed by railway boss Bernard Guillelmon, if they were obtained due to the excessive subsidies.
Bosses had known about Bschiss since 2017
At BLS, according to an investigation report by the auditor PWC, the management had been aware of the overdrawn federal funds since March 2017 at the latest. The price systems department is said to have known this since 2012. Guillelmon only acted in 2019 under pressure from the canton. The bonuses were only cut after the subsidy scandal broke up. Guillelmon resigned in 2020 and most of the former management board members are no longer on board.
«From 2021, the variable salary components will no longer include financial targets. We have recognized that such financial targets can create false incentives and have therefore corrected the practice, ”writes the BLS in its press release.
Expert casts doubt on decision
Peter V. Kunz, Professor of Business Law at the University of Bern, was astonished in the “Berner Zeitung” and “Bund” on Wednesday that the BLS does not want to reclaim the manager bonuses. From a legal point of view, it is true that a reclaim is not easily possible. But this is not generally excluded.
Kunz is thinking, for example, of a legal challenge based on the fact of deception. On the other hand, such lawsuits could at least be threatened in order to subsequently achieve voluntary repayment at the negotiating level.
Legally, the subsidy affair for the BLS is not over yet. The Federal Office of Transport has filed a criminal complaint. She is currently pending before the Federal Criminal Court. (SDA / sf)