The Obama administration on Wednesday appointed a compensation overseer with broad discretion to set the pay for 175 top executives at seven of the nation’s largest companies, which have received hundreds of billions of dollars in federal assistance to survive.
The mandate given to the new compensation official, Kenneth R. Feinberg, a well-known Washington lawyer, reflects the federal government’s increasingly intrusive role in the corporate affairs of deeply troubled companies. From his nondescript office in Room 1310 of the Treasury building, Mr. Feinberg will set the salaries and bonuses of some of the top financiers and industrialists in America, including Kenneth D. Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America; Vikram S. Pandit, the head of Citigroup, and Fritz Henderson, the chief executive of General Motors.
The compensation of executives at some companies receiving aid provoked a firestorm of political outrage earlier this year. In revising a previous proposal to set pay limits, the administration has decided to take an approach that will leave the success or failure of the effort to curtail high compensation at the assisted companies in the hands of Mr. Feinberg. (Mr. Feinberg himself will not receive any government compensation.) Read more at NYT
Feinberg's
bio: Kenneth R. Feinberg has been key to resolving many of our nation's most challenging and widely known disputes. He is best known for serving as the Special Master of the Federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, in which he reached out to all who qualified to file a claim, evaluated applications, determined appropriate compensation, and disseminated awards. Mr. Feinberg shared his extraordinary experience in his book What Is Life Worth?, published in 2005 by Public Affairs Press. Just a few years later, Mr. Feinberg became Fund Administrator for the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund following the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech. Mr. Feinberg also has served as Special Master in Agent Orange, asbestos personal injury, wrongful death claims, Dalkon shield, and DES (pregnancy medication) cases.
Mr. Feinberg founded Feinberg Rozen, LLP in 1992. He has been involved in resolving thousands of disputes involving a wide range of interests and clients. In the commercial sector, Mr. Feinberg designed, implemented and administered an ADR settlement Program involving Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Zurich N.A. Insurance Company and Hurricane Katrina and other Gulf hurricane claimants. He also has served as Distribution Agent for AIG Fair Fund claimants, and has been the Fund Administrator for a variety of claimant funds totaling more than $1 billion. In his capacity as an arbitrator, Mr. Feinberg helped determine the fair market value of the original Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination, and legal fees in Holocaust slave labor litigation.
Mr. Feinberg has been appointed to two presidential-level commissions because of his experience and expertise, and has had a distinguished teaching career as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, New York University, and the University of Virginia.
In 2004, he was named "Lawyer of the Year" by the National Law Journal (2004), and has been named repeatedly as one of "The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America" by the National Law Journal.
Education: B.A., cum laude, University of Massachusetts, 1967 J.D., New York University School of Law, 1970, (Law Review)
Clerkships: Chief Judge Stanley H. Fuld, New York State Court of Appeals 1970-1972
Leadership: Chairman of the Board of the RAND Institute of Civil Justice Vice-Chairman, Board of Human Rights First Board, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Read the Treasury press release outlining the details
here.
