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GENEVA : UBS said on Monday it would not pay a bonus to its chairman and board of directors for 2008 after the bank was bailed out by the Swiss government amid billions of dollars in losses from the subprime crisis.
"The chairman of the board and the members of the group executive board will not receive any variable compensation for 2008," the bank said in a statement.
UBS said other employees could still get a bonus but how much and in which form will be decided once the bank's full year results are known and after consultations with the Swiss Federal Banking Commission.
"UBS' new compensation model will be focused on the long-term and more closely aligned with the value creation of the firm," the bank said.
The Swiss government insisted that UBS reform its pay structure as part of its 60-billion-franc bail-out package last month to buy up its toxic debt.
Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz earlier this month called on "the top staff at UBS to reimburse spontaneously their undeserved bonuses".
In newspaper interviews he said that "the initial idea of bonuses has been partly perverted," adding that "unacceptable things took place" and that the "people concerned should go ahead with the paying back of their bonuses."
The bank's former head Peter Wuffli said last weekend he was giving up 12 million Swiss francs (10 million dollars, eight million euros) to which he was contractually entitled as a "gesture of solidarity" to the bank's staff.
Marcel Ospel, the former chairman of the UBS board of directors, has yet to say whether he will hand back part of his pre-2007 bonuses.
Last year he did not take extra payments, with the result that his earnings fell by 90 per cent.
Ospel has recently been tagged "public enemy number one" by the Swiss media who have been on his trail without success since he stepped down from his position with UBS in April 2008. - AFP/ms
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