MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lehman Brothers CEO took home 300 million USD in pay

Richard Fuld: I do not expect you to feel sorry for me

The head of failed United States investment bank Lehman Brothers told Congress on Monday that he took home about 300 million US dollars in pay and bonuses over the past eight years.

The panel is holding its first hearing into the cause of the financial crisis. It is being held amid renewed market turmoil, with shares plummeting further in Europe and the US. Committee chairman Henry Waxman opened the hearing by saying the credit freeze threatened the entire economy. "To restore our economy to health, two steps are necessary," he said. "First, we must identify what went wrong. Then we must enact real reform of our financial markets." Turning to Mr Fuld, Mr Waxman asked whether it was true he had received 480 million US dollars in pay and bonuses since 2000 - and whether this figure was fair. Mr Fuld replied that the correct total was about 300 million. "We had a compensation committee that spent a tremendous amount of time making sure that the interests of the executives and the employees were aligned with shareholders," he said. Mr Waxman also criticised Mr Fuld for requesting multi-million dollar bonuses for departing executives just days before last month's collapse. "In other words," he added, "even as Mr Fuld was pleading with [Treasury] Secretary [Henry] Paulson for a federal rescue, Lehman continued to squander millions on executive compensation." Mr Fuld said he took "full responsibility for the decisions that I made and for the actions that I took" and defended his actions as "prudent and appropriate" based on information he had at the time. "I feel horrible about what happened," he added. Lehman's failure set off a financial panic which prompted the 700 billion rescue package approved by Congress last week.