Obama’s executive remuneration tsar will crack down on bonus payments, reports the FT

American regulators will crack down on American International Group’s executive remuneration, the Financial Times reports this morning (October 12).

AIG sparked outrage earlier this year over its bonus payments.

Kenneth Feinberg, President Barack Obama’s executive pay tsar, has put pressure on the company to alter its pay plans, reported the FT.

Quoting sources close to the situation the FT said that a crackdown on pay at the state controlled insurance group could encourage executives to leave the firm, which received a massive $180bn federal bailout package.

"To have their [executives] pay curtailed below market levels is going to prompt some of them to leave,” said one source quoted in the FT story.

AIG sparked a storm over executive compensation when it emerged in March that the insurance group planned to pay $165m in bonuses even after receiving $180bn in government funding following the bad bets in derivatives that almost sank the company last year.

But Feinberg agreed that the proposed $7m annual salary package for Robert Benmosche, AIG's chief executive, should stand, said the FT.

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