Again Gordon Brown forgets that people were often paid in shares:
Britain’s financial regulator should be able to force failing bankers to hand back their bonuses, Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, said on Thursday.
Amid rising public and political anger over the scale of bankers’ bonus pay-outs, Mr Brown said they should only be rewarded for long-term gains.
“The short-term bonus culture in banks has got to end,” the prime minister told MPs on the House of Commons liaison committee.
“The bonus culture has got to be over many years rather than one year, and it should never be a one-way bet. If you fail, there should be a claw-back system.”
He said that rules overseen by the Financial Services Authority should be changed to allow penalties for banks that based rewards on short-term deal-making.
via FT.com / UK – Brown calls for bonus clawbacks.
And is commercial failure to be an offence punishable by forfeiture of property to the state? If so, why? Because the public was forced to bail out failed banks?
What a mess.
