Feinberg Says Firms Should Adjust Pay for ‘Crisis’

Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master on executive compensation, called on 17 bailed-out financial firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. to adopt compensation policies that allow directors to lower top executives’ pay when their firm is under threat.

About $1.6 billion the companies paid executives during the financial crisis, though legal, were “ill-advised” and showed “bad judgment,” Feinberg said at a press conference in Washington today. He stopped short of asking the firms to return money and declined to say the payments were “contrary to the public interest.”