RBS Settlement Could Reduce Bank’s Bonus Pool

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (NYSE: RBS) may have to settle criminal charges with the United States based on allegations that it manipulated interest rates. This could, in turn, cause sharp cuts in employee compensation.

According to The Wall Street Journal:

U.S. authorities are pushing for a settlement of interest-rate-rigging allegations with Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC that would result in a unit of the big British bank pleading guilty to criminal charges in addition to paying a penalty, according to people briefed on the negotiations.

Bloomberg reports:

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Britain’s biggest publicly owned lender, may reduce the bonus pool at its investment bank by more than a third as it prepares to pay fines to U.S. and U.K. regulators for Libor manipulation, a person with knowledge of the plan said.

RBS is poised to set aside about 250 million pounds ($393 million) for bonuses at the division, compared with 390 million pounds for 2011, said the person, who asked not to be identified because a final decision is yet to be taken. RBS plans to recoup between 100 million pounds and 150 million pounds from the bonus pool to offset the 500 million pounds it expects pay in fines to regulators to settle allegations of rate-rigging as soon as next week, two people with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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