Ken Lewis Stiffed

The San Francisco Business Times writes: In a move sure to send shock waves across Wall Street, Bank of America Corp. CEO Ken Lewis will get no pay this year.

Lewis acceded to a request by Kenneth Feinberg, the government’s pay supervisor, to take no salary or bonus this year. His base salary this year was $1.5 million.

“Lewis felt that it was not in the best interest of the Bank of America to get involved in a dispute with the pay master,” said spokesman Robert Stickler, quoted in media reports.

Lewis has been under increasing fire this year from a variety of regulators, much of the furor surrounding allegations that he didn’t disclose losses and bonuses at Merrill Lynch & Co. before BofA shareholders approved the brokerage firm’s acquisition in December. Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission and three state attorneys general have investigated, and a judge threw out a proposed $33 million settlement between BofA and the SEC, saying it was insufficient if BofA is judged to have misled shareholders.

Lewis is retiring at the end of the year with a substantial retirement package that includes a pension of $53.2 million; deferred compensation of $10.6 million; and 305,000 restricted shares valued at about $5 million, according to BofA’s 2009 proxy. Some estimate it could be worth as much as $120 million.

Lewis will have to repay BofA more than $1 million in salary he already received this year.

In a sign of the growing public pressure on Lewis and his bank, the Service Employees International Union earlier this week said it would ask Feinberg to put a halt to Lewis multi-million-dollar retirement package.

Feinberg has more power over this year’s CEO pay than it does over benefits earned in prior years.

The SEIU, in its letter to Feinberg and posted on the union’s web site, described Lewis as “one of the chief architects of the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression.”

The SEIU has been a frequent critic of Lewis.

Lewis is scheduled to retire at the end of the year.

In the letter to be delivered to Kenneth Feinberg, the White House’s special adviser on executive compensation, the SEIU said, “The American people are counting on you to reform the reckless culture of Wall Street that allows bank executives to drive our economy into the ground and walk away with millions.”