The original contract said Herbert’s annual pay would be 24 million rand ($3.1 million). JPMorgan blamed the mistake on a typographical error and said the figure should have been 2.4 million rand, according to court documents.
Herbert is now suing after he realized that he’d make a mere $300,000 a year. As the attorney for J. P. Morgan noted:
How can you possibly suggest that they would pay you so much money for an executive director level job?
This strange story alludes to this lawsuit:
More than 100 bankers claim Commerzbank AG broke a pledge by Dresdner Bank, which it bought in 2009, to set aside about $516 million for bonuses and are asking a U.K. court this week to order that they be paid. In the trial, scheduled to begin Jan. 25 in London, the former Dresdner bankers seek about 50 million euros ($64.5 million), with individual payouts of as much as 2 million euros ... Commerzbank bought Dresdner in January 2009, even though it was forced to seek an 18.2 billion-euro bailout from Germany during the credit crunch. A month after the deal was struck, Blessing had to defend the acquisition when Dresdner posted a full-year loss of $8 billion.
During the Great Recession, these bankers insist they are entitled to 7-figure compensation!
Come come now.
ReplyDeleteWe can argue at length whether the bonuses are deserved, but how can we plausibly claim that anyone who thinks he is contractually entitled to one salary and receives another should do anything but sue?
I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to settle for things like this and laugh it off.
In other words, the morality of what they are suing over is one thing, but the fact that they are suing over it is surely to be expected and, frankly, accepted.