(Bloomberg) -- Some McDonald’s Corp. investors told a judge the company didn’t get nearly enough money from former Chief Executive Officer Steve Easterbrook when he agreed to return $105 million to settle claims he was sexually involved with subordinates.

Three pension funds tied to the Teamsters’ union holding McDonald’s shares urged Delaware Chancery Court Judge Travis Laster to allow them to proceed with a lawsuit, which seeks financial penalties on directors for allegedly failing to properly oversee Easterbrook. Laster said he’d rule later. 

“Mr. Easterbrook became a rich man at McDonald’s despite his conduct,” Maxwell Huffman, a lawyer for the funds, told Laster Thursday in a hearing conducted via Zoom. 

The wealth accumulated by the former CEO, who worked at the company for more than a decade, still “far exceeds” what he returned to the company as part of a so-called claw-back suit, Huffman said. The funds contend McDonald’s also should have dunned Easterbrook for the tens of millions of dollars in legal fees the company spent on the case.

 Easterbrook still had a net worth of about $40 million after he handed over the $105 million, which included nearly $40 million in McDonald’s stock options, according to published reports. In July,  Easterbrook was reportedly backing UK-based Clean Kitchen Club, a plant-based fast-food startup, as an investor.

In court filings, the disgruntled funds criticized McDonald’s Chairman Rick Hernandez and other board members for paying the ex-CEO’s severance and then deciding to sue only after concluding they’d been misled about the extent of his misbehavior. Easterbrook joined McDonald’s in 2006 and spent four years as its chief executive.

Chicago-based McDonald’s sued Easterbrook in Delaware, where it’s incorporated. In court papers, the company accused the former CEO of lying about his sexual liaisons with underlings and sending dozens of sexually explicit pictures of women via his work email.

The company originally sought to recoup his severance package, valued at $37 million. McDonald’s officials didn’t break down what was covered by the $105 million settlement, though they later said it included compensation Easterbrook would have forfeited had he been truthful about his dalliances when he was ousted.

Any recovery from the shareholder suit — which would likely come from the chain’s insurance covering board members — would go back to the company and not the funds.

Lawyers for directors told Laster McDonald’s board didn’t ignore Easterbrook’s wrongdoing or attempt to “sweep it under the rug.”

“There was no willful inaction in this case,” Jonathan Kravis, one of the board’s attorneys, argued Thursday. He said directors didn’t ignore “red flags” about Easterbrook’s misconduct and were misled by the executive about the extent of his inappropriate contacts with female vendors and employees.

The case is In RE McDonald’s Corp. Stockholder Derivative Litigation, No. 2021-0324, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington)

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