The Securities and Exchange Commission investigation involves misleading shareholders about the reasons former McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook resigned. He was fired in 2019 because of love affairs with subordinates. How will this affect McDonald’s stock price?

Former McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook, who was fired in 2019 over allegations of sexual relationships with subordinates, has agreed to a five-year ban from holding positions at the public company and to pay a $400,000 fine, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Easterbrook of fraud. He himself neither admitted nor denied the charges. The SEC investigation was connected with misleading shareholders about the reasons for the resignation of the former head of McDonald’s.

Easterbrook had led the company since 2015, until he was forced to resign in November 2019 because of his affair with female employees. This also affected McDonald’s stock price, but the company’s stock price soon recovered.

McDonald’s said Monday that it fired him and sued him “for his misconduct.” The SEC also had questions for the company itself related to disclosures to investors about the circumstances surrounding Easterbrook’s resignation. In the end, the commission did not fine McDonald’s, citing his cooperation during the investigation and the fact that the company returned funds paid to the former CEO as severance pay. He received a significant part of the payoff in stock. McDonald’s did not disclose to investors.

Easterbrook was fired in the fall of 2019 after an investigation into his affair with a subordinate. Although the affair was consensual, the company believed the CEO had violated corporate rules.

Is McDonald’s stock a good buy? Definitely, yes. The company often gets caught up in scandals like this. But that doesn’t change the fact that investors remain confident in its stability. Nor can these falls be compared to the collapse of Facebook’s stock price in 2022.

In the summer of 2020, a new investigation revealed that the former McDonald’s CEO had hidden intimacies with three other female employees and also destroyed evidence. The company sued him, claiming he had lied during an internal investigation before he was fired. Easterbrook apologized. In December 2021, he agreed to return the $105 million he was paid.

We previously reported that a list of Asian stock market indices rose in trading on Thursday.