Two former executives of ABN Amro Australia failed to establish claims they were owed multi-million dollar ex gratia payments at the the time Royal Bank of Scotland bought the ABN group in 2008.In September 2008 RBS retrenched Angus James and in December 2008 retrenched Colin McKeith, both among the most senior staff at the bank.Both claimed damages from ABN and RBS for non-payment to them of severance and ex gratia payments to which they alleged they were entitled under the ABN redundancy policy.The Supreme Court of New South Wales late last year ruled in favour of the claim by James, whilst McKeith was unsuccessful. McKeith and ABN then both appealed to the Court of Appeal.A trio of appeal court judges held that "both McKeith and James have succeeded in establishing that there was a contract between each of them and RBS whereby in consideration of each continuing their employment with ABN/RBS to enable the takeover to be implemented in the event that either was made redundant on or before 10 October 2009, the [redundancy] policy would be applied to them."The Court of Appeal found that "by declining to sign the deed of release offered to him in September 2008, James forfeited any right to an ex gratia payment of $A2.5 million. Accordingly, he has failed to uphold the finding of the primary judge to the contrary."But the court found that "James has established that there was a breach of the contract between which entitled him to damages in the amount of his severance payment, namely $432,692."McKeith succeeded in his claim for a severance payment and won damages of $375,961.But the court ruled that "McKeith is not entitled to an ex gratia payment of $4 million or any other sum. ABN/RBS was entitled to exercise its discretion not to make any such payment. There was no breach of contract."