Michelle Leder is a National Treasure

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Market Movers

by Felix Salmon

Main

Crowds: Stupid Extra Credit, Friday Edition

Feb 21 2008 4:50PM EST

Roberta Yafie explains today how US bankruptcy judge Robert Drain slashed an $87 million bonus plan for Delphi executives to "just" $16.5 million. But don't think they haven't hidden all manner of other egregious overpayments in their 10-K:

CEO Rodney O'Neal, who was supposed to get a $5.3 million bonus before the Judge raised his objections, could end up with a whopping $63.8 million following a change in control, according to yesterday's filing. But it may be even more since the footnotes to the footnotes are a bit confusing and it's unclear to me whether O'Neal could receive an additional $10.1 million...
All told, the various payments add up to $168.6 million for five executives. Now if the Judge had a problem with $87 million going to 560 executives, wouldn't you think a pot that's double that, but only going to five people, would warrant even greater scrutiny?

Well, yes, but probably only if there's an eagle-eyed observer like Michelle Leder around to catch these things.

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