Payback Time for Ahold's Ex-Executives
Clawback arrangements are becoming increasingly common. But few companies have clawed back quite as aggressively as Ahold, the Dutch supermarket operator.
The company, which runs the Stop & Shop and Giant chains in the U.S. among others, said today that its former chief executive and chief financial officers had agreed to refund a total of almost $8 million.
The refunds were not the product of formal clawback provisions—contractual clauses requiring executives to give back any compensation that is later found to be based on phony revenue number or other metrics.
(A recent study by Equilar, the executive compensation consulting firm, found that 42 percent of the publicly traded members of the Fortune 100 disclosed clawback provisions in 2006, compared with about 17 percent in 2005.)
But the Ahold refunds were similar in spirit: A company demanding that ex-executives not benefit from lying about their performances. The paybacks were part of a settlement of employment arbitration cases between the company and former C.E.O. Cees Van der Hoeven and former finance chief Michiel Meurs. Van der Hoeven and Meurs were forced out of the company in 2003, after the discovery of an accounting scandal at the company's wholesale food unit, U.S. Foodservice Inc.
Seven former suppliers pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges after acknowledging that they helped executives meet earnings targets by inflating promotional allowances by $800 million.
Van der Hoeven and Meurs had each filed arbitration claims against Ahold after they left the company. Van der Hoeven said he was owed more than $6 million; Meurs sought $2.8 million. Ahold filed counterclaims, which led to today's settlement.
by Mark Stein
- Deep in the Valley: Digging and Baby-Sitting.
- May 12 2008 8:49AM EDT
- How to Spend Your Weekend
- May 9 2008 4:14PM EDT
- MySpace, YourSpace
- May 9 2008 3:15PM EDT
- A Dream Deferred?
- May 9 2008 1:26PM EDT
- Guinness! My Goodness!
- May 9 2008 11:29AM EDT
- Washington Moves to Enforce Net Fairness
- May 8 2008 10:02PM EDT
- Airplane Air Heavy on the Ozone
- May 8 2008 8:25PM EDT
- Bullish on Google — and Yahoo?
- May 8 2008 6:15PM EDT
- Backdating Bite: $10 Million, but No Jail
- May 8 2008 4:27PM EDT
- Jail Time for Price-Fixing Executive
- May 8 2008 2:46PM EDT
- Do the Sins of the Client Fall on the Lawyer?
- May 8 2008 12:32PM EDT
- Social Notes: Foster Children Meet Moguls
- May 8 2008 11:02AM EDT
- A Freakin' Sweet Deal
- May 7 2008 8:51PM EDT
- Hipsters to Browse the Aisles for Vista?
- May 7 2008 4:19PM EDT
- What C.E.O.'s Want in the Next President
- May 7 2008 2:57PM EDT
Archive
May 2008
Categories
- Art
- Berkshire Hathaway Meeting
- accounting and auditing
- advertising
- aerospace and defense
- agriculture
- airlines
- auctions
- autos
- banking
- bonds
- books
- brokerages
- careers
- charity
- coffee
- compensation
- consumer products
- corporate governance
- culture
- currencies
- drink
- economy
- education
- energy
- entertainment
- environment
- ethics
- executive pay
- fashion
- finance
- food
- health
- hedge funds
- hiring
- humor
- imports
- insurance
- international
- internet
- investing
- labor
- law firms
- legal
- leisure
- marketing
- markets
- media
- mergers
- military contractors
- moguls
- monetary policy
- mortgages
- people
- pharma
- politics
- private equity
- publishing
- real estate
- regulation
- research
- retailing
- sporting life
- sports
- stocks
- taxes
- technology
- telecommunications
- tourism
- toys
- trade
- transportation
- utilities
- venture capital
- wireless




