Kenneth Feinberg

By Justin A. Rice, Town Correspondent Salem State University announced its commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients on Friday afternoon for this spring, including House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Kenneth Feinberg, who oversees the payout fund for the Gulf Coast oil spill clean-up.  DeLeo, who is currently serving his second term as Massachusetts House speaker, will address bachelor's degree recipients from the College of Arts...

By Justin A. Rice, Town Correspondent Salem State University announced its commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients on Friday afternoon for this spring, including House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Kenneth Feinberg, who oversees the payout fund for the Gulf Coast oil spill clean-up.  DeLeo, who is currently serving his second term as Massachusetts House speaker, will address bachelor's degree recipients from the College of Arts...

WASHINGTON - A watchdog says private executives and Treasury officials pressured a top government official to allow seven banks and businesses to bypass pay restrictions established in the $700 billion bailout. Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg approved salaries for five executives in excess of the $500,000 limit, according to a report yesterday issued by the deputy special inspector general for the bailout fund. Feinberg also approved pay packages, which included stock and other forms of compensation, worth $5 million or more for 49 executives, the report says.

WASHINGTON - A watchdog says private executives and Treasury officials pressured a top government official to allow seven banks and businesses to bypass pay restrictions established in the $700 billion bailout. Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg approved salaries for five executives in excess of the $500,000 limit, according to a report yesterday issued by the deputy special inspector general for the bailout fund. Feinberg also approved pay packages, which included stock and other forms of compensation, worth $5 million or more for 49 executives, the report says.

WASHINGTON - A House panel voted yesterday to prohibit financial firms from offering corporate pay packages that encourage executives to take big risks, going further than what President Obama wanted to curb excessive salaries and bonuses on Wall Street. Lawmakers, including Republicans who opposed the proposal because they said it went too far, said they were under tremendous pressure from constituents. “Politically, it was very difficult for my members to stand up and fight this legislation,’’ said Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the top Republican on the House Financial...

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration’s “pay czar’’ is embarking on a review of proposed compensation packages for the top employees at seven companies on government life support, marking the first time a federal official will have veto power over how much private-sector executives are compensated. Kenneth Feinberg, who ran the government’s fund for families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has 60 days to approve or reject the compensation plans submitted this week from bailout recipients.

NEW YORK - The Obama administration’s decision to cut the pay of top executives at companies on taxpayer life support will help quiet the popular outrage over excessive compensation. But it introduces a new concern: brain drain. The 175 executives targeted by “pay czar’’ Kenneth Feinberg are not only the highest paid but also considered among the most talented and productive. And competitors outside the restrictions are likely to woo them, recruiters and compensation experts say. Losses like that could be devastating to the very companies the government...

JACKSON, Miss. - The fund set up to compensate victims of last year's BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has paid more than $5 billion in claims, the fund administrator said yesterday. Washington, D.C., lawyer Kenneth Feinberg also released a summary of payouts from the $20 billion fund, which was established in August 2010 to help people whose lives and businesses were hurt by the spill. The report says the Gulf Coast Claims Facility had received 947,892 claims from all 50 states and 36 countries.

WASHINGTON -- The families of victims in the Sept. 11 attacks would have been treated more fairly had they all received the same amount from the government's compensation fund rather than sums based on income, the program's administrator said yesterday. Kenneth Feinberg, special master of the compensation program, recommended in a final report that if Congress ever considers such a program again, it should offer a flat amount to all the victims, regardless of how much they earned, how much life insurance they carried, or their individual family...

WASHINGTON - Several firms that received large taxpayer bailouts have adjusted their executive compensation before the Obama administration’s pay czar issues new rules. Some fear those rules will go too far, preventing them from attracting the talent they need to remain competitive. Company officials and lobbyists say Bank of America Corp., Citigroup, GMAC Financial Services Inc., and others are reworking their pay plans to ensure compensation reflects executive performance. They are giving executives more of their compensation in stock and stock options, and spreading pay over a...

JACKSON, Miss. - The fund set up to compensate victims of last year's BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has paid more than $5 billion in claims, the fund administrator said yesterday. Washington, D.C., lawyer Kenneth Feinberg also released a summary of payouts from the $20 billion fund, which was established in August 2010 to help people whose lives and businesses were hurt by the spill. The report says the Gulf Coast Claims Facility had received 947,892 claims from all 50 states and 36 countries.

NEW ORLEANS — President Obama vowed during a White House speech last June that the $20 billion he helped coax out of BP for an oil spill compensation fund would take care of victims “as quickly, as fairly, and as transparently as possible.’’ Eight months later, that’s not how things look to many people along the Gulf Coast. Tens of thousands of fishermen, oyster shuckers, business owners, hotel operators, and even hairdressers still await payment. Many others whose claims have been turned down question the evenhandedness.

ATLANTA — The job of the administrator of the $20 billion fund for gulf oil spill victims is not to preserve money or return it to BP, and he should loosen the purse strings to help people suffering from last year’s disaster, the Justice Department said yesterday. In a letter to claims czar Kenneth Feinberg obtained by the Associated Press, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli alluded to the fact that only about $3.5 billion of the fund has been spent. Any money not spent would go back to BP. Perrelli also said that...

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. — BP’s compensation fund for gulf oil spill victims has issued a final settlement payment to just one of the thousands of people and businesses waiting for checks, records show, and that $10 million payout went to a company after the oil giant intervened on its behalf. BP will not identify the business, citing confidentiality, but acknowledges it lobbied for the settlement. The amount far exceeds smaller stop-gap payments that some individuals and businesses have received while they wait for their...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration says it’s chosen a Treasury Department lawyer to replace pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, who stepped down yesterday, ending a contentious 14-month tenure. Feinberg was accused of failing to act aggressively enough to recoup excessive pay for Wall Street bankers. He said in a final report that he thought his work had helped reform compensation policies. The administration says Feinberg, a native of Brockton, Mass., will be replaced by Patricia Geoghegan.

NEW YORK - The Obama administration’s decision to cut the pay of top executives at companies on taxpayer life support will help quiet the popular outrage over excessive compensation. But it introduces a new concern: brain drain. The 175 executives targeted by “pay czar’’ Kenneth Feinberg are not only the highest paid but also considered among the most talented and productive. And competitors outside the restrictions are likely to woo them, recruiters and compensation experts say. Losses like that could be devastating to the very companies the...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration says it’s chosen a Treasury Department lawyer to replace pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, who stepped down yesterday, ending a contentious 14-month tenure. Feinberg was accused of failing to act aggressively enough to recoup excessive pay for Wall Street bankers. He said in a final report that he thought his work had helped reform compensation policies. The administration says Feinberg, a native of Brockton, Mass., will be replaced by Patricia Geoghegan.

WASHINGTON - Several firms that received large taxpayer bailouts have adjusted their executive compensation before the Obama administration’s pay czar issues new rules. Some fear those rules will go too far, preventing them from attracting the talent they need to remain competitive. Company officials and lobbyists say Bank of America Corp., Citigroup, GMAC Financial Services Inc., and others are reworking their pay plans to ensure compensation reflects executive performance. They are giving executives more of their compensation in stock and stock options, and spreading pay over a longer period.