choices : news related : BARCLAYS RING FENCE MONEY TO PAY BONUSES TO LEHMAN BROTHERS EXECUTIVES.... [+] serious ballot by Steelhamster ACTIVE Mon Sep 22, 08 - Tue Sep 22, 09 .... opinion please (Source: The Independent) Lehman Brothers staff could enjoy bonuses worth more than a billion pounds despite the investment bank's collapse. Skip additional links Lehman employees End of an era: Lehman employees hug outside the failed bank in London WANT TO KNOW MORE? * Behind the scenes as Lehman fell * Lehman's London staff to be paid * Lehman's $5bn 'betrayal' of London OTHER STORIES * Japan giant swoops for £5bn stake in Morgan * Market report: Monday close * Sunday newspaper share tips * B&B lifted by new hopes of takeover * Nomura front-runner to grab Lehman Europe FTSE LATEST 5236.26-75.04 Go to Market data MIDAS EXTRA TIPS City worker The Mail on Sunday's column Midas will send extra share tips direct to your inbox. Find out more: Midas share tips LATEST SHARE TIPS Financial data - newspaper and pen - Newspaper tips - Daily Mail tips - Small cap tips > Midas share tips >> ALL SHARE TIPS The rewards lined up for US workers caused fury in London, where thousands of employees are facing a bleak future after Lehman filed for bankruptcy. Administrators winding up Lehman's European business have discovered £4.4bn was transferred to New York just before the bank collapsed. PricewaterhouseCoopers want the money to be returned - a call which was backed by Gordon Brown yesterday. The blockbuster bonuses for US staff were secured after UK lender Barclays snapped up Lehman's American operations and took on 10,000 employees. As part of the deal, a $2.5bn (£1.4bn) bonus pot was ringfenced to reward the US workers. The agreement was greeted with incredulity on this side of the Atlantic given the disastrous consequences of Lehman's speculation on 'toxic' debt. The failure of the investment bank caused stock markets to plunge and helped force the US Treasury into its largest ever financial bail-out. Yesterday the Prime Minister attacked the bonus system, which has been criticised for incentivising bankers to take huge risks. 'There has been a great deal of irresponsibility,' Mr Brown told Labour's annual conference. 'Mistakes have been made in the City. There's an element of the bonus system that is unacceptable... Everyone knows there is going to have to be changes in that.' Adair Turner, the new head of Britain's Financial Services Authority, also joined in the fray. He said that he wants to examine the way that banks reward their employees. Lord Turner said that the regulator cannot get 'directly' involved in what people are paid. However, he added that it was appropriate 'to ask searching questions about the nature of people's remuneration, and to ask questions of institutions as to whether they are paying out bonuses before they are really sure whether the profits are really there'. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy document filed by Lehman Brothers stated that Barclays has identified eight individuals in New York who are vital to the deal's success. Another 200 are said to be 'key'. These high-flyers will be hoping for generous payments from the bank's performance-related bonus pool. Meanwhile, Lehman's London employees are not guaranteed any pay after this month. However, there is a ray of hope for some staff in Canary Wharf, because Barclays is understood to have also submitted a bid for Lehman's UK equities and investment banking business. Workers in these departments will also be hoping for hefty bonus payouts if the deal goes through. Yet many of the 5,000 Lehman staff in Europe and the Middle East are expected to lose their jobs even if Barclays does buy part of the business. The chief economic adviser to Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond made a financial killing from the type of trading which helped to bring down banking giant HBOS, it emerged yesterday. Sir George Mathewson, 68, was under pressure to resign after it was revealed that he heads the £3.5bn Toscafund Asset Management hedge fund which has made millions from 'short selling'. This practice is now temporarily banned. Mr Salmond last week attacked the hedge funds as a 'short selling bunch of spivs and speculators in the financial market'. But Sir George suggested yesterday that anyone who used the word 'spiv' to describe a financial speculator was 'ignorant'. The comments threaten to damage his relationship with the First Minister beyond repair. A spokesman for Mr Salmond said: 'Normal hedging is part of normal marketplace operations. The issue here is naked short selling and deliberately destablising the market.' Here's my opinion Ballot #130601 : SEE RESULTS Comment: show your vote with comment?

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