Will Anything Change at Bonus Time?

With clawbacks a non-starter, maybe there'll be curbing of compensation at banks.

A while back, I posted a short comment concerning clawbacks at JPMorgan Chase (JPM) because of all the fines that it was paying to various government agencies.  There were hardly any calls for clawbacks then and hardly any since I posted my comments.

Now we are nearing a time when the banks will decide on the amount of the year-end bonuses to its executives. I find it disgusting that the federal government has control over the dividends that banks can pay to their stockholders and how much money the banks can use to buy back stock, but it cannot or will not stop or limit the bonuses that the banks will pay for this year's work by bank executives. In my opinion, bonuses cannot be justified for the top ten executives of any bank that has paid fines of more than $1 billions or made civil settlements of more than $1 billion this year, unless the executive receiving the bonus was NOT working for the bank when the infractions were committed.

I remember last year there was a bit of talk about the bonus for the CEO of JPM and at the time he said it was up to the board of directors. The board gave him his bonus, notwithstanding the London Whale disaster. Now this year we have the specter of gigantic fines on top of the losses from the London Whale mess, plus new fines and settlements totaling more than $15 billion dollars.

Will the CEO get another nice big bonus this year?

At the time of publication, the author was long JPM.