UnitedHealth paid $11.3 million to lure new chief legal officer
The health insurer, which recently paid $5.4 billion to purchase home health provider LHC Group, has hired a star-studded attorney who helped BP manage the legal consequences of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig blowout.
UnitedHealth Group paid its new chief legal officer $11.3 million for his first nine months on the job last year after luring him from British consumer products company Reckitt Benckiser Health.
Rupert Bondy, who is also executive vice president and corporate secretary at UnitedHealth, had spent nearly a decade in legal roles including group general counsel at energy giant BP, prior to joining Reckitt in 2017.
Bondy was among executives who had to manage the legal consequences of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig blowout and explosion that killed 11 crew members. The rig operated by BP in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in the largest-ever marine oil spill.
Bondy’s 2022 compensation included a salary of $706,731, but most of his pay was in the form of $5.9 million in stock awards and a signing bonus of $2 million, which the company said was intended to offset compensation he forfeited at his prior employer.
He also received non-equity incentive compensation of $1 million and $459,223 for relocation expenses.
UnitedHealth is based in suburban Minneapolis and is the nation’s largest health insurance company. In 2022, the company, which has more than 400,000 employees, reported 2022 operating profits of $28.4 billion on revenues of $324.2 billion.
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Bondy succeeded Matthew Friedrich, who spent less than a year as UnitedHealth’s legal chief.
Earlier in his career, Bondy worked at Morrison & Foerster, in San Francisco and London, at the London law firm Lovells, and in senior counsel roles at SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo SmithKline.
UnitedHealth in recent years has been expanding into other segments of health care. For instance, in February it closed on the $5.4 billion purchase for home- and hospice-care provider LHC Group.