Former Barclays CEO to forego 20m pounds in bonus

Under fire in the interest rate-fixing scam, Bob Diamond, former CEO of Barclays Bank, has decided to forego 20 million pounds (about Rs 171 crore)
in bonus and will receive salary and benefits to the tune of more than 2 million pounds (about Rs 17 crore).

Barclays bank chairman Marcus Agius appearing before a British Parliament committee also said Diamond resigned as "it became clear he had lost the support of his regulators". Barclays last month agreed to pay 290 million pounds (about Rs 2,500 crore) in penalties to the US and the UK authorities towards settling charges of attempting to manipulating Libor and Euribor rates, the global benchmark rates for lending.

Responding to questions by British MPs, Agius said Diamond had given up his bonus voluntarily. Soon after the interest rates fixing (Libor) scandal hit
Barclays, Agius has also resigned, but is continuing to find a replacement for Diamond.

Agius said he "regretted deeply" what had happened and was "truly sorry", and added that he had resigned because he felt "ultimately responsible for the reputation of the bank". He described the actions of those who had fixed rates as "abhorrent", but said at no point were these actions revealed to the board.

According to him, it did not reflect the wider culture at the bank. Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie thanked Agius for his "candour and directness", and added: "We are finding out a great deal that we should have found out last week (from Diamond).