By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) board of directors voted unanimously on Thursday to recommend the removal of President Mauricio Claver-Carone following an independent ethics investigation, two sources familiar with the vote said.
The IDB’s seniormost governing board will make a final decision within the next week on the removal of the president of Latin America’s largest development bank, the sources said.
Termination of Claver-Carone, a Trump-era nominee who took office in October 2020, requires a majority of the total voting power of the governing board, according to the bank’s rules. The bank’s three largest shareholders – the United States, Argentina and Brazil, together hold nearly 53% of the voting power.
The governors will begin voting on the issue on Friday with the vote to close on Tuesday, one of the source said.
Claver-Carone met earlier Thursday with the bank’s 14 directors to discuss an investigation by legal firm Davis Polk that found evidence to support whistleblower allegations that he had an intimate relationship with a subordinate.
Directors were also troubled by Claver-Carone’s “immense” lack of cooperation with the probe, a source told Reuters.
The Cuban-American president’s actions throughout the investigation, including his refusal to hand over a bank-issued mobile phone and his criticism of the probe on the bank’s website had contributed to a “toxic” situation, the source added.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler and Josie Kao)
