The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition that RBC terminated its chief financial officer on Friday afternoon for actions that appear on their surface to constitute cause. Post columnist Howard Levitt writes that CFO Nadine Ahn was fired after the bank "found evidence that, in contravention of the RBC Code of Conduct [Ms. Ahn had been] in an undisclosed close personal relationship with another employee which led to preferential treatment of the employee, including promotion and compensation increases." The CFO is relied upon by the investment community to ensure that their company is steered free of fraud, scandal, insider trading and all other financial shenanigans. A conflict of interest, particularly by an executive, is one of the clearest causes for discharge in our legal lexicon. It should deprive Ms. Ahn of any severance. That is an ironic aspect of employment law. The higher up you are in the hierarchy, the more likely misconduct is to be considered cause, depriving an employee of severance. Senior employees are fiduciaries and they are expected to be role models of rectitude. If Ms. Ahn has done what she is accused of doing and RBC still ends up paying her severance, that could itself be a scandal.