July 26, 2010
80% of Pay Unmerited: Feinberg’s Final Bankers Compensation Report
– Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com
Everybody is kung fu fighting. Quirky I know, but I couldn’t shake that song in my head as I read this NY Times’ front-page article on Friday about Special Master Ken Feinberg’s report about how 17 financial companies paid a total of $1.58 billion in executive compensation during the heart of the economic crisis. I probably should have been singing “Rich Girl” instead. Looking at the Special Master’s web page, I guess this is all there is – a 3-page report.
For the most part, Feinberg didn’t “name names” and his power is fairly limited since 11 of the 17 companies have repaid their TARP funds. Feinberg had conference calls with each of the companies over the past few weeks to lay out his proposals about how their compensation structures could be “fixed” – but as this WSJ article notes: “None of the firms contacted Friday said they would adopt the proposal on its face, with most saying they needed to study it, receive more detail or declining to comment. Others pointed out that they have already instituted similar procedures designed to claw back undue compensation.”