Tech

Former Google exec Amit Singhal exec was awarded a $45 million exit deal amid accusations of sexual harassment, according to lawsuit

Amit Singhal
Amit Singhal Flickr / Niall Kennedy
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Google's former senior VP of search operations Amit Singhal was awarded a $45 million exit package upon his departure amid accusations that the executive sexually harassed a subordinate, according to a complaint filed in a lawsuit on Monday that was obtained by Business Insider.

Though the package totaled $45 million, Singhal only received $15 million because of a clause in the deal that limited the payout if he joined a competitor, according to the filing. Singhal joined Uber in 2017 — about one year after leaving Google — but resigned only weeks later after news of the accusations against him at Google were made public. 

Details of Singhal's exit package, combined with Android creator Andy Rubin's $90 million deal, now puts Google at having agreed to pay two former executives accused of sexual harassment a combined $135 million upon their departures. However, because Singhal only received a portion of his package, Google paid out $105 million instead. 

Read more: Larry Page 'bypassed' Alphabet's board to personally give Andy Rubin a $150 million stock package while he was under investigation for sexual misconduct, according to lawsuit

News of how Alphabet handled the allegations against Rubin and other senior leaders at Google mentioned in an October New York Times report led to thousands of employees staging a walkout in protest in November.

On Monday evening, Google Walkout organizers said it would start a new campaign using the hashtag "#GooglePayoutsForAll" to call attention to alternatives for how the millions given to Singhal and Rubin could have been spent. 

The complaint was part of a lawsuit filed by shareholders in January. The lawsuit alleges that the Alphabet board members sidestepped their responsibilities by giving payouts to outgoing executives rather than terminating them for cause. Both allegations for misconduct had been investigated, and the accusers' accounts' were deemed credible.

In response to questions about sexual harassment, a Google spokesperson told Business Insider on Monday: "There are serious consequences for anyone who behaves inappropriately at Google. In recent years, we've made many changes to our workplace and taken an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority."

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Nick Bastone is a former tech reporter at Business Insider, based in San Francisco. He reported on Google/Alphabet and various tech news. Nick previously covered social media and politics for Inside.com. Before Inside, he was the digital editor for a Bay Area publication called The Six Fifty. Got a tip? Contact this reporter via Signal or WhatsApp at +1 (209) 730-3387 using a non-work phone, Telegram at nickbastone, or Twitter DM at @nickbastone. (PR pitches by email only, please.)