[HN Gopher] Booking.com to repay EUR65M Dutch State aid after EU...
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Booking.com to repay EUR65M Dutch State aid after EUR28M in bonuses
for 3 US execs
Author : the-dude
Score : 270 points
Date : 2021-06-04 16:17 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nltimes.nl)
(TXT) w3m dump (nltimes.nl)
| stuaxo wrote:
| Given the choice of paying back the 28 million in bonuses or the
| paying back the 65 million in state aid, the execs took the hard
| choice and decided to keep the bonuses.
| greydius wrote:
| Hard choice indeed
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| This feels like something stockholders should sue over, as it's
| a deliberate choice for executives to screw the company to pad
| their personal profits.
| elliekelly wrote:
| A derivative suit:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_suit
| mypalmike wrote:
| The successful result of such a lawsuit: average stockholders
| will get a $12 credit towards their next booking.com
| excursion. Class action lawyers take their $18M commission.
| And the execs keep their jobs and those bonuses.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Of course, and it will show great executives what a swell
| place to work booking.com really is. Even if the comp is a
| bit low by executive standards, at least they have your back.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| That's why boards hire "executive compensation consultants"
| to bless what they want to do anyway.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Why do you think there was a choice? I don't see anything
| supporting that in the article.
|
| The governments position was stated as follows: it was more
| important to maintain a consistent government than to apply the
| bonus rule retroactively and without warning.
|
| Seems like the company payback was entirely voluntary and this
| is an example no good deed going unpunished.
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| Perhaps time for a new law concept: "jury by referendum".
| alephu5 wrote:
| I don't know much about economics but I do wonder why governments
| don't finance companies during crises by buying shares, and
| subsequently recoup our taxes buy selling them in times of
| prosperity. The UK government did this for the banks in 2008 but
| have recently been selling shares below market price. Is it
| corruption or is something you else at play?
| sva_ wrote:
| FWIW, Germany bought 25% of Lufthansa for 9 billion EUR in
| summer 2020[0] amid the Covid-19 losses, while the market
| capitalization was less than 4 billion. So they paid more than
| double the market capitalization to get a quarter of the
| company.
|
| [0] https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/coronakrise-
| re...
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Because companies would rather lay people off than sell shares.
|
| Rationally, I think that governments should be ok with that as
| they will pay either way through unemployment or these rescue
| packages (at least with some industries where no critical
| supply chains are ripped out), but there would be enormous
| political pressure to stem job losses.
| newdude116 wrote:
| "Rationally, I think that governments should be ok with that
| as they will pay either way through unemployment or these
| rescue packages"
|
| You are wrong here. The 3rd option is to take money from the
| investors. The example given in this thread, Lufthansa, the
| stock holders should have been wiped out. It is called risk.
| Daishiman wrote:
| It must be so nice being a corporation and saying "oops, our bad,
| we'll get right on it" instead of going straight to prison if I
| were to personally defraud a state of so much money.
| ramenmeal wrote:
| It would be negligent on the booking.com executives behalf if
| they did not take this money when it was available. If there's
| an issue, it's in the relief program itself.
| _jal wrote:
| Since the proper behavior here (sociopathically maximize
| private profit from socialized care) is so easy to know, the
| execs should be outsourced or automated.
|
| Why waste those bonuses on them?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Plenty of companies did not take government money even though
| it was available out of solidarity with those companies that
| _did_ need that money. Booking.com taking that money when
| they could but didn 't need it led to (1) less money
| available for other companies and (2) a higher deficit.
| klyrs wrote:
| If they retained their employees and didn't take bonuses as
| promised, I might agree. But they didn't. They made empty
| promises, took the money, sacked their employees, and divvied
| the loot. This isn't even good for shareholders. It's pure
| narcissistic greed
| AbortedLaunch wrote:
| There's no fraud involved. Booking was legally allowed to keep
| the money.
| [deleted]
| consp wrote:
| This is just PR damage control. Apparently someone calculated
| the loss would be more than the 65M so instead of reducing
| the exec payout they just pay back the money.
| elliekelly wrote:
| If they didn't need the money in the first place why was it
| given to them?
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Why do you keep your own tax deductions? Do you think
| people only kept their stimulus check if they were hard-
| up for cash?
|
| The tax system isn't about paying what you feel you
| should owe. The government bailed out an entire industry
| and tried to pay out (somewhat) evenly over it. Why
| should some of the companies be obligated to forgo that
| cash just because they handled the pandemic better than
| their competitors?
| elliekelly wrote:
| I didn't ask why they took it. I asked why it was given
| to them.
| AbortedLaunch wrote:
| It was given to them to keep on their employees for the
| duration of the aid. The aid covered up to 90% of
| salaries, the percentage dependent on the revenue drop
| during that period.
| nielsbot wrote:
| I think this is partly explained by "we need to move
| quickly to help", versus taking time to design and
| implement some sort of means testing.
|
| I will note that PPP loans in the US are loans, and are
| only forgiven if you can link the funds to employees'
| salaries. The percentage of the loan that can be used for
| owners' salaries is also capped.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It was given to them because the travel branch was hard
| hit due to COVID and the government handed out this money
| to avoid lay-offs. In no way was it intended for bonus
| payments, the fact that that wasn't forbidden doesn't
| mean it was permitted.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| In a free society, the default is that anything not
| forbidden is permitted.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This money came with some very explicit strings attached
| about what it was intended for, that you weren't allowed
| to go buy yachts with it was not made explicit but even
| so it should be f'ing obvious.
|
| https://business.gov.nl/subsidy/corona-crisis-temporary-
| emer...
| cinntaile wrote:
| Because they fulfilled the criteria required to receive
| the money.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Why do they get 400 million a year in other government
| subsides despite being wildly profitable?
|
| Seems like the CFO and executives are worth every cent
| they are paid.
| akie wrote:
| That's an almost sociopathic way of looking at society.
| Government is the organization that we, the people, have
| created to accomplish our common goals. If you think that
| government is just a big fat cow that needs to be
| fleeced, and that people who are doing just that are
| worthy of praise, then I consider you with the same
| esteem as someone who steals from their neighbors.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think that the problem lies with the the voters and
| politicians who set up programs with explicit purpose of
| giving cash to mega corporations that don't need it. It
| isn't reasonable to put out a sign that says "free cows"
| and then blame the those who apply for and receive the
| cow.
|
| The solution is to stop giving handouts to corporations
| with billions in profit, not rely on them to refuse the
| free money.
| conductr wrote:
| Both stealing from neighbors and taking advantage of the
| govt are very common acts and it's naive to think
| otherwise
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Perhaps at the time they asked for the money, it wasn't
| clear whether they were going to need it?
| ergocoder wrote:
| Also, the government could have dictated any vague good-
| faith terms under the sun like "if you don't need the
| money, you must return it" and etc.
|
| But the government didn't do that.
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| They fired people after they got the money so they kept
| losses lower that way.
| conductr wrote:
| This is why they should be given something like a DDTL so
| they have to display a need for money but have assurance
| that the lending facility is available
| kittiepryde wrote:
| They might have been about to use it as a zero interest
| loan?
| adflux wrote:
| I am tired of governments deciding to not pursue justice
| because it would be more expensive, because of the negative
| impact on the investment climate and the litigation costs.
| Justice isn't meant to be profitable. Let's bite the fucking
| bullet and jail the people responsible for this kind of
| behavior
| MattGaiser wrote:
| There is no fraud here at all. No rules were broken.
| suetoniusp wrote:
| What does US execs mean here? I see nothing in the article about
| the US
| thanatos519 wrote:
| US execs, as in, the people who imported US tech management and
| fskced the whole thing up.
| fnord77 wrote:
| from a previous article I read on this, the executives were
| based in the US. I don't have a link
| tyingq wrote:
| _" Some 5.8 million euros in shares and cash went to CEO Glenn
| Fogel, and 2.8 million euros went to Peter Millones, the vice
| president. Nearly 20 million euros, mostly in shares, went to
| CFO David Goulden, according to company documents reviewed by
| NRC"_
|
| All 3 are Americans.
|
| https://nltimes.nl/2021/05/28/bookingcom-gives-eu28m-bonuses...
| kgantchev wrote:
| So this was not cash compensation? Should I put the pitchfork
| down now?
| tyingq wrote:
| They laid off a lot of regular workers during COVID. The
| funds were intended to help workers. Even netting out the
| bonuses, it's not a good look.
| hugoromano wrote:
| With interests please, and penalties for not abiding by contract.
| durnygbur wrote:
| This is so extraordinarily corrupted. Dutch employees of Booking,
| your income tax on the income above 68k EUR is 51% but don't
| worry the wealth will trickle down. Just work hard, wake up
| early, and be nice to people. Not.
| [deleted]
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| > Social Affairs Minister Wouter Koolmees told Parliament there
| was little the government could legally do to force Booking.com
| to return the money because the bonus provision was not
| immediately included in the rules. He said it was more important
| to maintain a consistent government than to apply the bonus rule
| retroactively and without warning.
|
| This sounds either lazy or corrupt. There's no need to
| retroactively apply the rule, but there are consequences that
| could be applied in the future, like forbidding companies that
| used the money for bonuses to apply for other government grants.
| Doing nothing because it's "more important to maintain a
| consistent government" is messed up.
| the-dude wrote:
| As a Dutch citizen, I like my government to be consistent and
| not retroactively petty because of their own failings.
| gargs wrote:
| On the other hand, the government in general and the tax
| authorities in particular have a history of backtracking and
| retroactively diminishing promised rulings. Refer to the 30%
| ruling changes that were retroactively applied after
| employees had moved to the country and had received a signed
| declaration from the authority.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Agreed, as far as I can see, it was a calculated risk that
| companies would abuse it. Better to just suck it up and hope
| for public outrage in some of the more despicable cases,
| which is just what happened here.
| sabas123 wrote:
| > Agreed, as far as I can see, it was a calculated risk
| that companies would abuse it
|
| During the announcement of the first support package it was
| explicitly stated that due to the short time frame they had
| to operate in, they were taking this risk for the greater
| good. I believe that in the next support package they
| immediately made it a lot better w.r.t to abusing support.
|
| Personally I really liked how upfront they were with it.
| the-dude wrote:
| Not only that, but TIL : HN automatically converts 'million' to
| 'M' and pulls the amount together, even if the title submitted is
| too long.
| barkingcat wrote:
| automation is overrated. I wouldn't be surprised if it was
| manually done by one of the backend admins or editors
| the-dude wrote:
| Well, it happened instantly.
| omni wrote:
| I just confirmed it's automated by testing it
| https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=omni
| mosselman wrote:
| I love simple-looking software that has nifty features hidden
| away behind the scenes where you'd never expect it.
|
| I pointed a non-tech recruiter of ours to HN the other day and
| she said "that's a weird looking site". Yes, yes it is and I
| like it.
| paulpan wrote:
| I was wondering what made HN special, aside from its user
| community. The simplicity and self-governance model are atop
| that list.
|
| In other words, what if HN was a subreddit? There is actually
| a parallel one already set up:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/
| sim_card_map wrote:
| nothing weird about HN
|
| it's perfect
| dgfitz wrote:
| I've always found the indentation being done by a gif kind
| of weird. But hey, it works.
| sim_card_map wrote:
| it's because it was created like this 15 years ago, and
| if it ain't broke, don't fix it
|
| I wish every website followed this rule
| fnord77 wrote:
| it's funny - in the banking world, at least with bonds, 'M' is
| 1000 and 'MM' is 1 million
|
| then you have fox news who uses "G" for 1000, as in 1 grand.
| elliekelly wrote:
| The way M is used so inconsistently always means I have to
| stop and ponder the context when I read it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I do not think the convention of using multiple Ms makes
| sense anymore in a world of billions and trillions. No reason
| to use MMM or MMMM instead of k, M, B, T, and eventually Q.
|
| The usage of G is just regrettable, although I guess there is
| a population that does not associate k with thousand. But
| that's more of an indictment in lack of adequate education
| that they would not have experience with sufficient science
| courses.
| ewalk153 wrote:
| Not sure of the history of the Ms, but it could come from
| French: 1000 = mille 10e6 = million 10e9 = millard
| sva_ wrote:
| Mille is originally latin though. Thats probably where
| the econ people use it from. (Though milliard is French)
| xmprt wrote:
| Why is G regrettable? Would you prefer they use K? Or would
| M be better?
|
| I personally find G for grand to make a lot of sense when
| talking about money. K doesn't make sense because no one
| says kilodollars. And M is too easily confused for million.
| rightbyte wrote:
| How about 't.' for thousand?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| B is ambiguous. G isn't.
| superjan wrote:
| Not G, it should be k, of course. For a multiple of 1024.
| kevincox wrote:
| That is sad. We have standards like SI units to help us
| communicate. Something as wide and non-specialized as Fox
| News should be using common standards.
| mypalmike wrote:
| Fox News literally had a segment where Tucker Carlson and a
| guest ranted about how the metric system is a tyrannical
| globalist plot. I don't think they're interested in such
| standards.
| gopher_space wrote:
| Is there a better way to signal that you've never worked
| with your hands?
| jbverschoor wrote:
| They'll also pay back the subsidies in all other countries
| bjeds wrote:
| "Company X got state aid and paid Y in bonuses" seems to be one
| of those cookie cutter news reports that pop up several times per
| day the past year. The titles seem to imply that state aid
| directly went to a few senior executives. Outrage, right?
|
| But why not look past the knee jerk reaction?
|
| 1) In most cases I'm aware of, after digging deeper, you find out
| that the state aid is not for the company - it's for the
| employees. Running a business is no charity and if you have
| employees that are superfluous due to current market situation
| you lay them off unless the cost of retraining future employees
| is higher than paying operating expenses to have employees around
| that are not working as much as they used to. State aid can
| affect the decision by offloading expenses to the state, for
| employment safety.
|
| 2) Bonus payouts may be for last year performance and not related
| to either covid or the state aid at all. Just because you have
| two large numbers within the same order of magnitude doesn't mean
| they are related. Bonuses may have been paid of regardless of
| state aid.
| kgantchev wrote:
| On top of that, it looks like the bonuses were not cash but
| mostly company shares. I don't see what's the problem with
| that...
| mypalmike wrote:
| Why does the asset class matter?
| Aeolun wrote:
| The optics are the problem. Lay off thousands of people, and
| get paid huge bonuses?
| GordonS wrote:
| Shares can easily be exchanged for money.
|
| Paying execs huge bonuses (whether in cash, gold, shares or
| whatever), while taking huge sums in state aid and laying off
| thousands of employees is morally despicable behaviour _at
| best_.
| mantas wrote:
| So without state aid they would pay out bonuses but not regular
| pay to employees?
| Okkef wrote:
| They didn't need it but made use of it anyway. This is not a
| matter of rules, but of ethics
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I think what's really crazy here is that Booking.com would
| rather lose EUR65M than _not_ pay executives EUR28M in bonuses
| (for a total loss to corporate coffers of... EUR93M?).
|
| Sure, state aid is "for the employees", but in most of these
| cases: The company obviously could've paid them anyways, since
| they had this much spare compensation for their rich
| executives, and that the company continued to benefit from the
| labor of employees that the government was paying the salaries
| for.
|
| The government, and by proxy, the taxpayers, end up doubly
| screwed over, while the corporation gets to continue to enrich
| itself, and enrich its executives, who are already wealthy.
|
| Rather than give corporations huge blank checks, governments
| should've sent that money directly to individuals, and allowed
| corporations to fail or not as per usual. Most of these
| companies would still exist anyways, since they have plenty of
| money.
| arp242 wrote:
| You're correct that the state aid was intended for employees,
| yet it was given to booking.com and not on the people's
| personal bank accounts. They were more or less free to do with
| that as they saw fit; the only condition was that they couldn't
| fire people for 3 months (did did fire ~25% of the work force
| after those 3 months).
|
| In this case, they _changed their own rules_ regarding bonuses
| on account of being an exceptional situation and that,
| apparently, these bonuses were desperately needed. How many of
| those 25% of people could they have retained if they didn 't
| pay millions in "desperately needed" bonuses (not all were in
| shares btw)?
|
| The original reporting[1] was fairly detailed with specifics,
| subsequent reporting left out some that; you know how these
| things go... There is some nuance here, but it's still leaving
| a really bad taste in my mouth.
|
| But to be fair, I find it hard to blame just booking.com for
| this because it's the entire culture that's just rotten IMHO.
| It's all "free market" this and "no government interference"
| that but then also "plz government help us" when things go
| belly-up. When people point out the hypocrisy it's "for the
| employees, not the company!" True, but misses the larger
| picture IMO. "Running a business is no charity", well
| apparently it is because the tax payer will happily get you out
| of trouble with the "but think of the employees!" emotional
| blackmail argument only to have them turn around with "free
| market!!!" a few months later while swimming in their obscene
| and unnecessary stacks of money.
|
| And to be clear, I'm actually quite in favour of the free
| market and capitalism (moderated to some degree), but this
| doesn't strike me as either.
|
| [1]: In Dutch: https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/05/27/booking-
| paste-bonusrege...
| itake wrote:
| I can't speak for this situation in Europe, but with the US PPP
| loans, companies basically had 2 months of their payroll paid
| for. This also means that got 2 months of free labor.
|
| With the no payroll costs, where does that "extra" payroll
| money that would/should of gone to payroll go? Investors?
| Executives?
| nickff wrote:
| Well, a great deal of the money was to forestall layoffs;
| discount-rate labor doesn't do you much good if you don't
| need it.
| gareim wrote:
| Money is fungible. Aid that goes to paying non exec employees
| frees up money to be used for bonuses, so aid went to bonuses.
|
| I think people are more mad at the idea that companies that
| didn't need aid got aid.
| [deleted]
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Similar discussions in Lithuania: lots of companies that claimed
| state aid due to Covid went on to purchase supercars, boats, etc.
| mkl95 wrote:
| A quick Google search reveals Booking's net income is two orders
| of magnitude above those figures. The Dutch State should ask
| themselves if Booking ever needed those EUR65M and review the
| process that got them that money.
| the-dude wrote:
| Are those figures for 2020 / 2021, aka the COVID era?
|
| I don't have those figures either, but at the time I think
| everybody agreed nobody knew what would happen. Booking.com's
| revenue might have fallen to close to nil.
| gargs wrote:
| They get close to EUR400 million a year in 'innovation
| subsidies', so this probably didn't warrant any checks.
|
| https://www.quotenet.nl/financien/belasting/a27160874/nederl...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| And they had 6 billion in cash on hand going into the
| pandemic
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That much money for "innovation" and their website still
| looks like a malware site.
| belter wrote:
| The "innovation subsidies" are well know in the Netherlands
| as another tax stealing mechanism. Nobody takes them
| serious. The same as the intellectual patent laws in NL and
| Luxembourg. For Booking.com apparently most of their back-
| end is still Perl....
| namdnay wrote:
| I don't know about the Netherlands, but I'm France for
| example "innovation subsidies" are basically just a way to
| give tax breaks to industry. Every company with 100+
| employees will have someone working on claiming as many
| projects as possible as "innovation" and claiming the
| relevant tax breaks
|
| Very silly, but it does slightly reduce the prohibitive cost
| of labour
| clawoo wrote:
| I'm from an EU country which is quite low on the pecking
| order. If we offered "innovation subsidies" to our
| businesses it would be considered state aid and we'd be in
| infringement.
| Maarten88 wrote:
| We have those too in the Netherlands. Even small startup
| companies can apply and receive these tax breaks when they
| do technical innovation ('WBSO').
|
| There are also tax-discounts for large and profitable
| companies ('innovatiebox') that innovate (companies like
| ASML, NXP) that Booking.com would probably benefit from
| too.
| throwaway-8c93 wrote:
| There's a lot of corporate fraud like this, even in
| countries that have a reputation of being well governed.
|
| I personally saw a respectable Finnish company leeching on
| government innovation funds, asking employees to log their
| working hours under a specific project. The kicker - nobody
| in Finland was working on that project, in reality it was
| developed in another country.
| Raqbit wrote:
| This process was revised after the first round of aid to no
| longer allow the companies to give bonuses.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Wish this kind of stuff would happen with U.S. bailouts when they
| spend it all on bonuses.
| h_anna_h wrote:
| I wonder if Mozilla received state aid.
| neom wrote:
| Similar conversation happening in Canada (but no repayment):
|
| "Bloc Quebecois MP Xavier Barsalou-Duval put forward the motion,
| which states "that this House condemn the decision of senior
| management of Air Canada to pay themselves $20 million in
| executive bonuses when they're received $6 billion in public
| assistance."
|
| Air Canada informed shareholders on Monday that its top
| executives and managers were getting a combined $10 million in
| stock options and bonuses for their response to the COVID-19
| pandemic."
|
| https://globalnews.ca/news/7918875/air-canada-executive-bonu...
| koblas wrote:
| Was listening to CBC and they made an excellent point. Which is
| that the Air Canada board of directors has nobody on it from
| any union or "representing" the employees. When you look at the
| compensation committee you see other people in executive roles.
|
| Could you see any union representative on the board of
| directors voting for executive bonuses after they layoffs over
| the last year. Until such biases at the BOD level are addresses
| you will only continue to see similar actions.
| jlos wrote:
| The issue is (only slightly) more nuanced: while the executives
| collected bonuses, they did go for a few months without pay and
| their overall bonus' for 2020 were lower than in previous
| years.
|
| It does reveals the reality of our managerial class--in a sort
| of distributed, quasi-feudalism they are entitled (legally and
| practically) to extract massive amounts of wealth from large
| corporate entities regardless of any negative impact on the
| company.
|
| - Running the business into the ground (Target Canada)
|
| - Running the business into the ground _while underfunding the
| company pension_ (Sears)
|
| - Lobbying for billions of dollars of tax dollars while cutting
| thousands of jobs (Bombardier, Air Canada)
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| They promised to protect jobs and no bonuses in return for
| state aid.
|
| That's exactly what they didn't do. They laid off 5000 people
| and got bonuses.
| charwalker wrote:
| If a company receives federal aid, or their employees receive
| federal aid due to low pay ex Walmart in the US, they should
| have to cap payouts. Maybe based on a ratio to the lowest
| paid employee or federal minimum wage. Make execs lobby to
| raise the minimum wage so they can increase their bonus or
| something.
| ljm wrote:
| It's overly simplistic but I'd try to change things such
| that:
|
| - if the company is asking for aid or corporate welfare,
| bonuses for any exec are off the the table. They have to
| lead by example and take hit, as leaders, before anyone
| else.
|
| - welfare isn't given to the business directly without
| strict conditions, and in other ways it is given directly
| to everyone through payroll.
|
| - the government has the backbone to actually enforce this
| instead of cowering at the mere sight of money.
|
| It should be harder, almost impossible, for a corporation
| to receive welfare from the government than an individual
| person.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| In the netherlands, it was mentioned for "no bonuses" as
| part of the agreement/state aid.
| teachingassist wrote:
| I believe the article clarifies this - the "no bonuses"
| rule didn't exist when Booking.com claimed this aid.
|
| The rule existed for the second tranche of aid, which
| Booking didn't claim.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The fact that that even needed to be specified was pretty
| bad, the money was clearly earmarked for companies to
| spend on their regular employees to avoid lay-offs.
| Booking paying it out to their execs was absolutely mis-
| appropriation in every sense of the word, and only
| absolutely massive backlash here and significant talk of
| boycotts, including on national TV, is what turned them
| around on this.
| teachingassist wrote:
| No doubt;
|
| Nonetheless, this is business as usual.
|
| Booking.com are masters of tax avoidance and I'd guess
| all of their usual bonuses are essentially covered by
| Dutch state aid in the form of reduced taxes.
| tsss wrote:
| Or maybe don't pay any federal aid at all. It rewards bad
| business, hurts competition and obviously doesn't even
| work. Instead:
|
| - Give aid directly to the employees who need it instead of
| relying on the trickle down myth - Buy shares to inject
| capital into companies as a form of financial aid but get
| something in return for the people who have to pay for it -
| Never let companies get big enough that a bailout is
| necessary in the first place - Let businesses fail and get
| bought by more competent competitors like the market
| economy doctrine dictates - Prohibit foreign takeovers
| pkaye wrote:
| > Maybe based on a ratio to the lowest paid employee or
| federal minimum wage. Make execs lobby to raise the minimum
| wage so they can increase their bonus or something.
|
| Using the lowest paid employee ratio results in companies
| outsourcing the low pay jobs so that this ratio looks
| better. For example janitorial jobs.
| neom wrote:
| "The bonuses, meant to offset the salary cuts the
| management team took in 2020, were distributed while the
| company was calling for a bailout from Ottawa. The
| government agreed to the package on several strict terms,
| including guaranteed refunds for customers and a cap on
| executive pay.
|
| But the terms of the deal do not apply retroactively.
| Moving forwards, under the bailout agreement, executive
| compensation at Air Canada must be capped at $1 million per
| year until all government loans are repaid."
|
| The government did cap the salaries, I've not done any
| super deep research but from the articles I've read, I've
| not been able to figure out how this was allowed.. except
| this article that mentions that they're not applied
| retroactively, and that the payout was because the exec
| team went without salary. Not totally clear in the Canadian
| press how the whole thing actually panned out at the end of
| the day. (fwiw: I didn't post my original comment as an
| opinion on the situation, only that a similar conversation
| is happening in the Canadian press. :))
|
| https://www.thestar.com/business/2021/06/01/air-canada-
| paid-....
| terryjsmith wrote:
| My understanding is that the bonuses were paid out in the
| final stages of the negotiations for the bailout package.
| davedx wrote:
| Don't forget Nissan's Ghosn!
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/19/business/carlos-ghosn-
| nissan-...
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| But that's 1/300 of the amount of aid they received spent on
| exec bonuses.
|
| In the booking.com case it's almost half the amount of aid
| spent on exec bonuses
| namdnay wrote:
| AC are particularly disgusting, because their execs spent the
| last year posting sob stories about how the Canadian government
| was forcing them to lay off their brave staff (going so far as
| to convince the _people they were firing_ to post on linkedin
| that it was all the government's fault)
| newdude116 wrote:
| OT. Where do you book hotels?
| mathattack wrote:
| This reminds me of the Wall Street execs paying themselves huge
| bonuses after the 2007/2008 bailouts. (And nobody went to jail)
| The mentality was "The government should have struck a tougher
| deal!"
| Vinnl wrote:
| One caveat that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that the bonuses
| were awarded in shares, ie they did not affect Booking's
| liquidity. Not relevant for every (valid) opinion you might have,
| but relevant when judging e.g. Booking's consideration between
| not awarding the bonuses and paying back the aid.
| gargs wrote:
| https://outline.com/Nf5eNe
|
| Here's a little bit of background from an article at the start of
| the pandemic. The company had originally announced that they
| would cancel bonuses in exchange for government support. They
| even promised to protect jobs, which they didn't, and laid off
| around 5000 anyway.
| Arrath wrote:
| Just despicable.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Would like to see more info about what exactly they said about
| bonuses and to whom. The article only mentions it in passing
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