His resignation from the bank had been expected after the disclosure that he had submitted an untruthful account to the court about how he had met Jeff Chevalier, a 28-year-old Canadian with whom he had a fouryear affair, in an attempt to prevent The Mail on Sunday from publishing an account of the relationship.

Lord Browne had been a director of Goldman's since its flotation in 1999 and had served as both chairman of its audit committee and a member of its corporate governance and compensation committees.

Lord Browne's departure from Goldman Sachs came as he spoke out against "prejudice and bigotry" in BP's latest sustainability report. The document reflects on a torrid 12 months for BP, during which time it was vilified for safety and environmental failings following the Texas City refinery explosion which killed 15 workers, and a series of oil spills in its Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska.

Writing in the introduction to the 2006 report, Lord Browne says:

"Great companies will only succeed if they are free of prejudice and bigotry that can limit the development of individuals on the basis of, for example, gender, nationality, race, sexual orientation or age." The report shows, however, that the percentage of women and ethnic minorities in "group leadership" positions remained static last year at 17% and 5% respectively.

It discloses that there was a 34% rise in the number of people dismissed last year for unethical behaviour or non-compliance with BP policy, from 478 in 2005 to 642. Of these, 68% were contractors. The number of BP employees using its internal hotline to raise concerns about unethical behaviour rose by 68% from 634 to 1,064. However, BP said this was partly due to a campaign it had run during the year to raise awareness of the service.

On the environmental front, BP cut its direct carbon dioxide emissions from 73.2 tonnes to 59.3 tonnes.