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Orcel as well as Santander utterly neglected to factor this cultural gap into their equation. It didn’t become visible to the two parties until Santander was forced to face the «bill» to release him from UBS. Both sides decided that the gap was too great.

4. Product of Industry

Let's think for a moment if Orcel had moved across the street to Credit Suisse, instead of heading for Madrid. Would Switzerland's second-largest bank have withstood the maelstrom of criticism from shareholders over a similar $50 million advance, just for jumping? Hardly.

Orcel is practically unplaceable: the architect of some of Europe's biggest financial services deals is part of a rarified sphere of bankers who still command what are publicly viewed as ludicrously high pay in capital markets. It is only natural that Orcel and his guild have little interest in burning down the salary and pay schemes they have built up for themselves over years.

5. Victim of Helpless Regulation

Overseers the world over have clamped down on at times absurdly excessive salaries and bonuses in investment banking following the financial crisis of 2008/09. One prominent result of the crackdown are so-called bonus-malus schemes, in reference to the Latin for good-bad to mean reward or to penalize. The systems enable banks to lock away some bonus components for years into the future in order to better govern the long-term consequences of the actions taken by their top risk-takers.

Some countries, most notably the U.K., have rolled out bonuses taxes or so-called clawback mechanisms, but by and large the basic salary and bonus culture in investment banking hasn't changed much since before the crisis. Banks have successfully propped up high pay schemes, which they frequently argue are necessary to remain competitive. The only difference is that bonuses now trickle through over several years instead of raining down every February.

The result? Orcel earned $25 million before he set foot into UBS offices when CEO Sergio Ermotti poached him from Bofa Merrill Lynch in 2012. Credit Suisse boss Tidjane Thiam won $14 million advance in 2015 as a compensation for rewards he had to abandon when he left U.K. insurer Prudential.

The well-intended practice of delaying bonuses has maneuvered both banks and regulators into a moral dilemma – laid bare by the Orcel reversal. Santander simply cannot justify Orcel's high price to a public which remains incredibly sensitive to banks.