BP Fired Chairman Albert Manifold After Clashes With CEO and Board Director
The unanimous removal after less than a year leaves BP without a permanent chair and investors without a clear picture of the board's direction.
Albert Manifold clashed with BP non-executive director Simon Henry in the months before the company's board voted unanimously to dismiss him on Monday (2026-05-26), the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday (2026-06-01), citing people familiar with the matter.5 The tension extended to Manifold's relationship with chief executive Murray Auchincloss, the report said, pointing to fractured lines of authority at the top of one of Europe's largest energy companies.5
BP announced Manifold's removal with immediate effect on Monday (2026-05-26), citing "serious" and "unacceptable" concerns about "governance standards, oversight and conduct."2,4 The company offered no public account of the specific acts that triggered the action. Manifold had replaced Helge Lund as chairman in July 2025, less than twelve months before his departure.2
BP shares fell 4.3% to 527.4 pence in London on the day of the announcement (2026-05-26).4 The move was a surprise to the market; the size of the decline reflected investor discomfort with an unannounced boardroom rupture rather than any resolution of the underlying concerns.
The Manifold episode extends a record of governance difficulty. Former chief executive Bernard Looney forfeited approximately £32.4 million in remuneration following his own conduct-related departure.2 At BP's 2025 annual general meeting, Lund received a near-25% vote against his re-election, a significant protest from shareholders divided over the company's position on energy transition.2 The vote underlined the governance fragility Manifold inherited when he took the chair. He did not outlast it.
Manifold's dismissal deepens a pattern of board-level instability while BP navigates competing investor demands. Some shareholders have pushed for faster retreat from hydrocarbons; others want higher returns from the company's oil and gas assets. The governance disruption has now extended through two consecutive chairman exits and a preceding chief executive dismissal — a sequence that makes it harder for any incoming board leader to project continuity.4
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Will Hares said Manifold's successor and the next permanent chair "must rekindle investor confidence in the company's strategy and internal controls."3 The temporary leadership that has filled the gap does not resolve whether the boardroom dynamics that surfaced during Manifold's tenure have been addressed.
BP's UK listing ties it directly to North Sea investment sentiment. Britain's effective tax rate for upstream oil and gas development stands at 78%, among the highest in the world, deterring new spending in a high-cost province that is already in long-term decline.1 North Sea revenues peaked at roughly 3% of UK GDP in the mid-1980s; the basin has contracted sharply since, and the gap between fiscal terms and commercial returns has widened.1
The specifics of what drove Manifold's ouster remain undisclosed by BP. The Wall Street Journal's account — personal clashes with Henry and Auchincloss — is the most detailed available, but the company has not confirmed the particulars.5 Without that clarity, investors are left weighing whether the causes were isolated or whether the strategic disagreements that divided the board in the Lund years have carried forward.
The appointment of a permanent chair will be the first concrete test. The speed and calibre of that decision, and whether it commands the backing of both major shareholder blocs, will show whether the near-25% protest vote that preceded Lund's exit has evolved into a broader institutional disenchantment with BP's governance.2