Criminal probe understood to have ended following settlement over 'inconsiderate' behavior
SAP paid former CTO Jürgen Müller €7.1 million ($7.5 million) after he left the German software company by mutual agreement in September last year.
Müller departed following an "incident" at a company event earlier in the year. At the time, SAP said its supervisory board had reached a "mutual agreement" with Müller for him to leave the company's executive board at the end of September.
In a prepared statement at the time, Müller said his behavior had been inappropriate. "I regret being inconsiderate and sincerely apologize to everyone affected. I recognize my behavior at that moment did not reflect our values at SAP."
Later, authorities confirmed that the investigation related to allegations of sexual harassment.
Reports from January suggest that Müller had reached a settlement and that the investigation had ended. The Register has asked public prosecutor Staatsanwaltschaft Heidelberg to comment.
In a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, SAP documented its executive compensation. In addition to CEO Christian Klein receiving €19 million ($20 million) and Thomas Saueressig, board member for customer services and delivery, receiving €8.2 million ($8.6 million), the regulatory releases reveal total compensation to Müller of €7.14 million.
The filing said Müller had reached a mutual agreement with the supervisory board to end his employment at SAP effective September 30, 2024.
Also departing this year was Scott Russell, who resigned from his position of chief revenue officer on August 31, 2024. He reached a "mutual agreement" with the supervisory board to end his employment at SAP effective December 31, 2024. A severance payment for the remainder of his original term of appointment until January 31, 2027, totaled €12.6 million ($13.2 million), while his total compensation reached €21.5 million ($22.5 million).
Julia White also exited the role of chief marketing and solutions officer, effective August 31, 2024. Her severance payment for the remainder of her original term of appointment until February 28, 2027, reached €9 million ($9.2 million), while her total compensation for 2024 was €17.1 million ($17.9 million).
For 2024, SAP said its cloud and software revenue was €29.96 billion ($31.5 billion), within the range of earlier forecasts, while its operating profit exceeded the forecast range to reach €8.2 billion ($8.6 billion).
The value of SAP's shares has risen by approximately 50 percent in the last year. ®
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Comments
By recursivecaveat 2025-03-0318:562 reply > I recognize my behavior at that moment did not reflect our values at SAP.
This line in corporate apology statements is so weird, like SAP had some unique higher ethical code that opposed sexual harassment, which only one called to the service of humanity as a SAP executive would understand. I guess whoever writes these things always throws it in to try to subtly reassure people that it's not systemic?
By lazide 2025-03-0319:16 It’s a condition of the payout (along with a huge NDA I’m sure) for exactly that reason.
Otherwise, in theory the CTO would be free to make a giant mess with ‘everyone was fucking each other’s wives, and I got confused which one I was doing today so here we are’.
I’m sure whatever group cut the check feels it was worth it.
What “value” does any for profit company have, except ya know, profits? Especially multinational corporations and especially Silicon Valley bro-companies?
I wish we could somehow ban words like values, family, standards etc from corporate lingo. Why can’t this dude just take the money and go quietly? Does he really think that someone is going to read his statement and think “ah, poor guy, it was an honest mistake”? The level of fakery in the corporate world … yikes
You are right that everything is about money in a for profit enterprise, however that does not preclude organizational values.
Those things are profitable too, by generating goodwill (which is accounted for in GAAP), positive brand influence or simply by reducing liability from suits and settlements
The impact is real and tangible in measurable things like hiring to retention to sales to pricing and so on .
B2B orgs like SAP would have more difficulty (pay more) in hiring and retaining talent when culture is more toxic and does not basic values people would like to see in a workspace. It is also important while frustrating to most people that those values are soft and don’t alienate any significant part of stakeholders.
In the long run DEI, values and other initiatives is cheaper and therefore profitable. Tesla is good example of why shareholders loose when the CEO has strong political leanings.
Matt Levine take that everything is securities fraud is basically the same view point from a shareholder perspective.
The caveat is, it only has to feel those things matter not that they actually do, it is much harder to fake it over the long run though.
Apple for example makes the consumer feel their phones are Eco-friendly with all the recycling pitch they do.
A sincere approach to ESG here would be to design phones that are repairable with replaceable parts like the fairphone tries and give the consumer the right to do fix their own devices. Apple cannot do that without hurting profits so they will not .
We will get local optima like this without external help, Apple after all is eco-friendly compared to most other devices on the market after all. To push them over is where regulation and government intervention when done right works
By derivagral 2025-03-046:181 reply > which is accounted for in GAAP
This isn't the accounting definition of goodwill; to an accountant, its just "hey you overpaid according to book value." I don't think the HR "goodwill" is formally accounted for.
https://www.purdueglobal.edu/blog/business/gaap-treatment-of...
By manquer 2025-03-047:33 Goodwill is realized only a sale yes. It is the difference between the fair market value of the assets and the price (i.e. value) paid of the asset.
FMV is calculated and updated in books periodically, price or value is only possible to account for if there is a sale otherwise any metric for value is not sound accounting wise, but that doesn't mean those things don't have value at all(or only on sale), they are just not accounted until then. It is for a good reason you wouldn't want a company to say use goodwill as a security for leverage for example. Goodwill does conventionally include intangible value like brand, some forms of IP, and things like customer(employee?) loyalty and so on.
That’s crap. Organizations reflect the individuals within them. An organization can have a value if the actual people there uphold it. If an organization is hollow then the people within it are hollow.
If a corporation is greedy then the people within it are greedy.
Disagree. Corporations reflect the _decision-makers_. The average rank-and-file employee at an MNC couldn't care less about the values, regardless of how virtuous they might be.
Workers have agency if they want to. They can strike, they can quit, they can maliciously comply. Deciding not to do those things for economic comfort is its own vote of support.
There are options available for workers to assert influence. They’ve done it to spectacular effect throughout history.
By aadhavans 2025-03-044:44 > Deciding not to do those things for economic comfort is its own vote of support.
Not in a surveillance state. It's easy for a company/government to identify unrest and deal with the perpetrators, before anything breaks out. These institutions have the power to ruin your life for showing any signs of protest.
By raxxorraxor 2025-03-0412:23 > Deciding not to do those things for economic comfort is its own vote of support.
That is reductive. People have their own responsibilities and are dependent on income. This is the vast majority of workers.
They do have agency but usually larger action is done if circumstances reach certain thresholds.
By cyanydeez 2025-03-040:57 Organizations reflect the values of who gets paid the most to manage them
Most people don't realize that many CxOs have employment contracts with a set term (that has to be renewed), pay schedules and pre-negotiated departure payout.
I'm not saying whether or not this payout is right. What I'm saying is, it was probably required due to contractual employment terms negotiated years ago.
Seems there's a case to be made for SAP to alter any future contracts of that nature to contain a clause that if you're leaving for a serious breach you get nothing. Willy Wonka style.
"Don't go away angry, just go away"
It's entirely possible that it's cheaper than a lawsuit and potential further reputational harm.
Perverse incentive alert: If you want to fire an exec cheaply, just do an internal honey pot.
Any competent exec should be able to logically weigh the consequences of their actions. If something will get them fired and they choose to do it anyway, they deserve to be fired. That's not a perverse incentive, it's weeding out incompetents.
By codr7 2025-03-0320:41 What does competence have to do with anything here?
Certain people are not fit to be leaders, because they have abusive personality disorders; unfortunately many of them currently are in leadership positions.
By Horffupolde 2025-03-0319:47 Or better: external, and make him resign.
By hankman86 2025-03-041:42 Bad leaver clauses are difficult to enforce. What this person has done may not be an undisputed breach of company policy. More like what observers would consider subjectively unethical conduct that is potentially damaging to the company’s reputation. But which a court may not see as something that voids early termination bonus payouts.
On the bottom line, the €7m cash payout is a rounding error on the company’s balance sheet. And now it is off the books and will not trouble them and create negative headlines for a protracted period of litigation in court.
Unfortunately since these sorts of arrangements are pretty standard nowadays, companies that don't include them will be at a disadvantage when looking to hire executives.
So this is unlikely to change.
By lenerdenator 2025-03-0320:282 reply I love how, idk, 5000 years into civilization we, as a species, still can't consistently find ways to keep psychopaths from screwing the rest of us without them getting enough resources to last the majority of people in a given society a lifetime.
By akudha 2025-03-0323:44 You gotta be willing to be an arsehole to some level at least, to reach upper levels of management. It is no surprise that most leaders in big companies are some levels of psychos. I don’t think someone like Mr.Rogers can run SAP, no matter how brilliant they are
The more a position is competitive and the more likelly it is a psychopath will have it.
Think of it this way: to be a piano teacher, you have to be good at piano and good at competing with other teachers. The hard part is becoming good at piano. The fact that there are other piano teachers in the vincinity does not really prevent anyone to establish himself as a new one. So, it's not very competitive.
To be the CTO of a fortune 500 though, you must be good at whatever skill is needed of a CTO but you also have to fight hard against all others candidates. So the position is very competitive. If you reach it, it's mostly because you are good at competing for a rare position; it is secondary whether you are technicaly better or not.
Psychopaths, because they feel no shame and no remorse, are much better than average at competing.
By lenerdenator 2025-03-0419:45 I wonder if you could solve that by having a lottery for all of the people who get a job as a part of a C-suite in, idk, the Fortune 500.
Each year at random, one gets selected for having all of their earthly possessions removed from their control. Now, that's a population of over 1000 people, so your odds of becoming utterly destitute aren't high, but they're not zero.
By dboreham 2025-03-0320:00 Then no white teeth smile execs would ever take a job there.
By lazide 2025-03-0319:20 Meh, seems unlikely this would really count as a serious breach.
By seanhunter 2025-03-0319:49 Not sure that would apply here. Every directors and officers contract I’ve seen or signed has clawback provisions and break clauses for gross misconduct and that type of thing. Then there is a (tense) negotiation about on the one hand whether to enforce those and on the other hand sue and make damaging public allegations and then hopefully common sense prevails and people settle for something less than the full payment but more than zero.
SAP (given what I know about German business culture which isn’t much but isn’t nothing either) could probably have toughed it out if they had wanted to but 7 bucks probably isn’t the full payout either given RSUs etc.
When things like this happen, it just shows me how little I actually know about the world and how it works.
By lifestyleguru 2025-03-0322:371 reply The world rewards exactly the opposite character features you were teached to develop and cultivate. Including women who select a partner.
A wholly unnecessary addendum with your second sentence that is irrelevant to the matter at hand.
By lifestyleguru 2025-03-0323:131 reply Character features which make one refrain from such addendums also don't pay in life.
By paulryanrogers 2025-03-040:281 reply > Including women who select a partner.
What does this even mean? That women don't select for the traits common people are taught (kindness, generosity, grit, honesty)?
By daseiner1 2025-03-047:37 Yes, that's what the oh-so-wise commenter above us insinuated.
He evidently is late to receive the message that "being unoffensive" ranks remarkably low on the measure of a man.
