BizJournals Portfolio
Nov 03 2008 3:47pm EDT

Too Little, Too Late at UBS?

If only the honchos at UBS had been a little quicker to show remorse....

A day after the Swiss newspaper Sonntagsblick reported that senior UBS executives will forego their 2008 bonuses, Switzerland's finance minister went them one better:

Pay back the 74 million Swiss francs ($64 million) in bonuses the executives received last year.

Of course, in 2007 the bank lost only 4.4 billion francs. This year, it is forecast to lose closer to 10 billion francs.

At a press conference today, Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz appealed to the "individual responsibility of those who have received such bonuses," Reuters reports from Zurich.

He acknowledged, however, that "legally it will be difficult to get the bonuses back."

Still, it's an intriguing idea.

by Mark Stein


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