The FT reports:Royal Bank of Scotland is considering recouping half of its imminent regulatory penalty for Libor abuses from the 2012 bonus pool of its investment bankers, as pressure mounts on the top two executives in the division to quit.
Royal Bank of Scotland is considering recouping half of its imminent regulatory penalty for Libor abuses from the 2012 bonus pool of its investment bankers, as pressure mounts on the top two executives in the division to quit.
According to people close to the RBS board, the bank may seek to divert up to £150m of the bonus pot to fund a fine that is expected to top £300m.
Why only half? £150 million would be less than half the bonus pool, apparently.
And why is there a bonus pool in this situation? And will the rest be recovered next year?
The leak of this information (for that is what it must be) poses more questions than it answers. And it does not suggest that even now the bank has understood the seriousness of the situation, the need for accountability by its senior staff, of the change in culture required.
When will we learn?
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Why aren’t any of them in the dock?
Given that the situation we’re in is largely due to the actions of the banking system, and that the vast majority of us are paying for this, why shouldn’t all bonus be taxed at 100% and go straight to the state, without which, after all, the entire system would have collapsed.
But of course we have a government dominated by one party that receives most of it’s funding from the City, and refuses to acknowledge that the Thatcherite doctrine its followed for years has failed. The ‘Cowardly State’, in short.
Doh! Do you not realise that they have to pay out enormous bonuses to get the right people? I have heard the banks say that often. They do so as a matter of brute fact and sometimes they even look a wee bit regretful that life is tough that way. So it follows that they got into this mess by not paying enough in bonuses: they can’t have, or they would have got the best people and so avoided the need for a bail out. When they drafted in a new boss he had to have a lot of money, obviously, cos he had to be the very best. The old bosses had to have them too, because there was a contractual obligation to pay them and nobody could break a contract, could they? Well, not unless it was a social contract with the majority of citizens regarding pension’s and benefits’ entitlements: those are different.
I weep for your blindness, Mr Murphy 🙂
Very good Fiona, very good. I wonder what Swift, or Molliere would have made of our wonderful banking elite? I would imagine they would have stuck the knife in good and proper.