THE TELEGRAPH: Andrea Orcel, a London-based banking executive who worked for Merrill Lynch, is under investigation after receiving $36 million (£25.5m) in pay and bonuses last year.
Mr Orcel is one of seven senior executives from investment bankers Merrill Lynch subpoenaed by the New York Attorney General over bonuses.
Andrew Cuomo is investigating $3.6 bn (£2.5 bn) in bonuses paid by Merrill shortly before it was bought out by Bank of America (BoA) last September.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Orcel, 45, the company's top investment banker, and nine other colleagues got a total of $209m (£148m) in cash and stocks in 2008 at a time when Merrill's net loss rose to $27.6 bn (£19.5bn) and it had to be bailed out by the American taxpayer.
Mr Orcel has worked on some of the world's biggest investment-banking deals in recent years, including the highly damaging Royal Bank of Scotland takeover of the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007, a deal for which he was paid a $12m (£8.5m) bonus.
The doomed deal was one reason why the Government was forced to take a 95 per cent stake in the bank. London Banker to Be Questioned in US over £25m Merrill Lynch Bonus >>> By Nick Britten | Thursday, March 5, 2009
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