Glass-Lewis Study of Executive CEO Cost and Benefits: Let the Shareholder Lawsuits Begin!

Glass-Lewis website (see Pay Dirt Report)

Proxy researcher Glass-Lewis found that 40 corporate executives had compensation in excess of $30 million last year--and the shareholders frequently did not get what they paid for. Particularly bad deals involved executives of Sprint/Nextel, General Motors, Ford, CBS and home builder KB Homes as each of these companies added injury (falling stock prices and/or net losses) to insult (the compensation packages).

Absent some new government regulation--which is very possible given the present political climate and the statements of Presidential candidates McCain and Obama (not to mention McKinney and Nader)--the only real resource available for excessive executive compensation packages would be shareholder lawsuits against boards of directors for negligence or bad faith in setting compensation packages. Given present law, as long as executive salaries were accurately reported where required (such as tax returns), CPA firms probably--PROBABLY--are reasonably safe unless they were hired by board of directors to consult on executive pay packages.