Topic “Morgan Stanley”

Despite their tough talk about clamping down on pay, banks and securities firms are using other financial perks to ease the toll on employees.

Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. are doling out shares that employees can sell within months—much sooner than normally allowed. Other giant banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, let certain employees borrow money to relieve personal cash crunches.

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Thursday is expected to propose new limits on the size and risk taken by the country's biggest banks, marking the administration's latest assault on Wall Street in what could mark a return, at least in spirit, to some of the curbs on finance put in place during the Great Depression, according to congressional sources and administration officials.

Two top federal regulators said Thursday that their agencies had fallen short in the run-up to the financial crisis, in part because thriving mortgage markets and soaring Wall Street profits created a false sense of security.

The heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said that shortcomings in their agencies, coupled with flaws in the larger regulatory system, contributed to the period of great boom and even greater bust.

A year after the financial system nearly went over the brink, the congressional commission investigating the roots of the crisis confronted four of the world's most powerful bankers on Wednesday and challenged them to take more responsibility for their role in upending the global economy.

WASHINGTON — The bipartisan commission established by Congress to examine the causes of the financial crisis summoned the heads of four large Wall Street banks on Wednesday to defend their lending, risk management and pay practices and explain their companies’ role in the biggest economic downturn since the Depression.

NEW YORK -- As resurgent Wall Street banks prepare to hand out billions of dollars in bonuses -- their first since returning federal bailout funds -- the payments are drawing intense scrutiny from regulators and politicians.

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo sent letters on Monday to the nation's eight largest banks demanding a detailed account of the bonuses planned for employees.

Everyone in Washington is taking a swing at Wall Street pay.

The Obama administration wants to tax it. The Federal Reserve wants to tweak it. And the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation wants to shape it.

Even the compensation adviser to the Obama administration, who is nearly powerless now that big banks have returned their bailout funds, is getting a say on pay packages.

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master for executive compensation, said he is “very concerned” about the possibility his pay cuts may drive talent away from companies bailed out by U.S. taxpayers.

Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s investment bank, survivors of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, are set to pay record bonuses this year.

The firms -- the three biggest banks to exit the Troubled Asset Relief Program -- will hand out $29.7 billion in bonuses, according to analysts’ estimates. That’s up 60 percent from last year and more than the previous high of $26.8 billion in 2007.

HONG KONG -- Morgan Stanley is in the midst of a legal tussle in England and China with a Chinese company over yuan-dollar hedges worth several tens of millions of dollars, people familiar with the proceedings said Thursday.

In a sign that mainland enterprises continue to be at odds with foreign investment banks over earlier derivatives deals, Morgan Stanley is suing Hong Kong-listed China Haisheng Juice Holdings in London for US$26 million over its refusal to put up collateral for a hedging contract, according to these people and legal filings.