The AIB bonus story is intriguing, and I think it is worth pointing out the timeline in which the story developed:
1st December, 2010. Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan responds to a written question in the Oireachtas from Fianna Fail deputy Chris Andrews and says (my emphasis) “€56.3m of the total bonuses of €58.7m paid in 2009 and 2010 relates to performance related bonuses to staff in AIB Capital Markets. These bonuses were awarded for individual and business performance in prior years but deferred and paid in the 2009 and 2010 period.” Literally speaking these AIB bonuses had been paid – that is, past tense. There is no mention whatsoever about the €40m.
4th December, 2010. Evening Herald reports on Chris Andrews’ question above and Brian Lenihan’s reponse. The Herald does not deal with the €40m and reports in terms that again confirm that the bonuses were in fact paid – again past tense. On 10th December, 2010 the Herald reported that “the Herald first revealed the scandal of bankers’ bonuses last Saturday and since then bank staff have been under extreme pressure from the public.” However that’s not quite correct – the Herald reported the response to Chris Andrews’ question but it was not the Herald that uncovered the story of the €40m payment.
8th December, 2010 Paul Clarke at efinancialcareers posted a detailed story on the €40m bonus payout. He subsequently tweeted the story at 12.55pm and six hours later at 7.15pm Jill Treanor at the Guardian reported the story. What a coup for Paul Clarke!
9-13th December 2010 – furore over €40m of bonuses being paid to staff at a time when social welfare and the minimum wage for new employees were being cut. For the first time the local papers, the Irish Times (from 11th December), Independent (from 9th December) and Irish Examiner (from 9th December) report on the story. RTE (from 9th December) carries the story on its website and news bulletins. RTE say on 9th December, 2010 “Earlier, it emerged that AIB is to pay €40m in bonuses next week as a result of a High Court ruling earlier this year. Last year almost €55m was paid to staff in bonuses.”
13th December, 2010 – Minister Lenihan writes letter to AIB and AIB respond to the letter.
14th December, 2010 – Minister Lenihan appears on RTE’s Morning Ireland and the following exchange takes place (4 mins 30 secs in approx)
Aine Lawlor – Isn’t it a bit more than galling? Doesn’t it suggest that somebody dropped the ball at the very least in your department that nobody could anticipate that these two side by side [the draconian budget on 7th Dec and the efinancialcareers revelation on the 8th] would absolutely infuriate, and legitimately infuriate, the public?
Minister Brian Lenihan – One lesson that my department has learned is that they don’t control the news-flow – someone dropped the ball in the sense that the information was provided at a very sensitive time.
So were it not for Paul Clarke at efinancialcareers, then it is likely that tomorrow €40m would have been paid out by AIB – 18.7% owned by the taxpayer today but likely to be 95%+ owned by the taxpayer in two months, an institution that is massively insolvent and needs some €10bn of support from the State (already invested or committed) just to open its doors this morning. And were it not for someone “dropping the ball” and alerting the Paul Clarke at efinancialcareers then Minister Lenihan would not have raised a finger to stop the bonus payments. To paraphrase Gandhi – what do you think of a functioning media in this country? I think it would be a great idea.
Well done to Paul Clarke and efinancialcareers! Paul also keeps his audience updated on twitter.
(with thanks to Gerard Sheehy for links to the RTE interview and the record of the written question and answer in the Oireachtas)
NAMA Wine Lake 
Hi.
This story was actually broken by Paul Clarke of eFinancialCareers on the eFinancialCareers Irish site on December 7th. The Guardian simply lifted the story giving Paul no credit whatsoever. Jill Treanor deserves to be praised simply for reading Paul’s article. The Irish people owe Paul Clarke a great debt (he is gratefully accepting donations).
Thanks Mrs Mystery, do you have a link at all to the December 7th story. I can find a December 9th story (link below) which says
“As we exclusively revealed yesterday, AIB is set to shell out €40m to pay its capital markets staff backdated bonuses from 2008. ” – “yesterday” would have been December 8th, no? There is a hyperlink under the “exclusively revealed” but it doesn’t link to anything relevant.
http://news.unquote.efinancialcareers.com/ITEM_FR/newsItemId-29942
Hi again.
Slight amendment – Paul’s story went up on the 8th. But it went up ahead of the Guardian’s story, which simply reiterated what he said and was published several hours later.
Here’s the link from the 8th. http://news.efinancialcareers.ie/newsandviews_item/newsItemId-29903
Somehow or other it’s possible to establish on Google that this went up first – it was well ahead of the other stories.
All the other papers simply regurgitated what he said, without giving him any credit whatsoever. Time to set the record straight…
The Guardian story appeared at 7.15pm and was tweeted at 7.32pm on 8th December, 2010. I can find no time stamp whatsoever on Paul’s story or the five comments but we will pursue the evidence and ensure the entry is correct as to the source.
Hi again
Paul tweeted the story at 12.55pm on the 8th (http://twitter.com/paultclarke).
The Guardian wrote their story at 7pm. Jill Treanor really should have credited him.
Good enough, the post will be corrected to give proper credit to the source. Well done to Paul Clarke and efinancialcareers.
Okay Mrs Mystery, from limited research it appears to be nigh impossible to ascertain the date AND time of the creation of a webpage (Ask Leo – link below – seems authoritative on the subject)
But plainly there is an extensive article by Paul Clarke on 8th which received five comments also dated the 8th.
Whilst this might be dreadfully unjust, for the time being the entry above will be updated to show that both outlets produced the €40m story on the 8th. I have contacted efinancialcareers asking about a time stamp for Paul’s story.
http://news.efinancialcareers.ie/newsandviews_item/newsItemId-29903
Ask Leo talks about web page time stamps – http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_find_out_when_a_web_page_was_written.html
Hi Namawinelake
The best people to contact at eFinancialCareers are probably the editors. Their email is editor@efinancialcareers.com.
Hi,
Thanks for this detailed and well-researched timeline on the AIB bonus story. I followed here from reading one of Brian Lucey’s past articles in the Irish Times.
I also want to say that I actually know somebody who works in the legal department in AIB, who argues vociferously that AIB staff are entitled to their bonuses back in 2008, including herself, and who claimed that AIB capital markets staff received no bonuses in 2009 nor in 2010 (but this doesn’t tally with the details of the reports above).
What I found really disturbing is the fact that when John Foy took AIB to court to get his 160k or so bonus (as reported in the Irish Independent), he won the case because the bank did not contest it.
Now it seems to me that there is a conflict of interest when the bank is not acting on disinterested legal counsel in their decision to not contest the bonus claim brought against it, thus allowing the banker to win by default.
This story about AIB bank bonus is not over yet because 91 other AIB bankers have begun legal proceedings against the bank to claim their bonuses (as reported in the Irish Independent). The number might increase (total number of staff relevant for this EUR40 bonus pot: 24,000) further if AIB is not forced to take independent counsel so that the legal team handling their case does not stand to reap personal financial gains if the bank lost.
I would be grateful if somebody could investigate this further and getting this publicised. From what I gather the thinking of AIB Capital Markets staff and the AIB legal team are one and the same — that AIB staff are entitled to their bonus regardless of the fact that the bank is essentially bankrupt and survives only on state aid, to say nothing of how AIB has contributed to harming the Irish economy having been one of the key players who got Brian Cowen to capitulate to the bank bailout back in 2008 — and it is therefore highly suspect, if not actually corrupt, to have a legal team advising AIB in regard to these claims when members of the legal team themselves stand to gain when the bank (and thus Irish taxpayers since the bank is in the process of being nationalised) lose in these upcoming court cases.
There is a more detailed entry on the AIB bonuses from Tuesday this week (link at the bottom) in which following appears “The statement from AIB yesterday suggests gratitude that the Minister has now intervened. What were the three public interest directors on the AIB board doing up to now? How is it that last week the Minister was powerless to stop the €40m in bonuses being paid and the proposed 90% supertax on bank bonuses would only apply to future bonuses. Yet today he seemingly has the power? The AIB statement says “however the letter from the Minister conveys a decision by him to legislate which overtakes this obligation.” Retrospective legislating away personal rights? This is just downright confusing.”
Could you ask your AIB lawyer friend what she thinks is meant by the AIB management statement “the letter from the Minister conveys a decision by him to legislate which overtakes this obligation.” Others (I think even Labour leader Eamon Gilmore) have also suggested the 90-odd staff apart from John Foy that initiated claims might also be legally entitled to their bonus. And there may be many others whose contracts and bonus terms were in the same form as John Foy’s. As I concluded “This is just downright confusing.”
https://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/confusion-reigns-over-aib%E2%80%99s-bonuses/
@namalake
Thanks for your quick reply. The “AIB lawyer friend” is precisely the person whom I feel is personally compromised because the person stands to gain personally from a negative decision in the court in respect of her client, the bank.
The AIB response to Lenihan’s letter stated that the bank initially received “strong legal advice” that the bank is legally obliged to pay these entitlements. That “strong legal advice” now seems to me to be a compromised one as it is coming from a section of the AIB with a conflict of interest in the potential outcome of the court case in question.
So it is confusing, not only because of the issues that you yourself have highlighted (what were the public interest directors doing indeed?), but also because of seemingly compromised legal advice received by the bank in respect of these bonus entitlements.
This should be investigated and publicised, we need more transparency into the affair than is currently the case, especially with further potential payouts at stake at the taxpayers’ expense.