Ovunc Kutlu
27 January 2021•Update: 27 January 2021
ANKARA
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon will see his annual pay cut by $10 million as a penalty amid the bank's role in Malaysia’s 1MBD money laundering scandal.
American multinational investment bank and financial services company will also impose pay cuts for Chief Operation Officer (COO) John Waldron and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Stephen Scherr.
The top three names were not "aware of the firm's participation in any illicit activity at the time the firm arranged the 1MDB bond transactions, [but] the Board views the 1MDB matter as an institutional failure," said a securities statement filed Tuesday.
Solomon received an annual salary of $27.5 million in 2019 but he will receive $17.5 million for 2020 after the decision.
Waldron and Scherr will see their pay reduced by $7 million each.
Goldman Sachs reached a $2.9 billion settlement in October with the US Justice Department and regulators in the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong, amid a probe of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal.
Five former senior executive officers, including former CEO Lloyd Blankfein, were required to forfeit all or the majority of performance awards between 2011-2013.
The scandal came to light when Malaysia's then-Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2015 was accused of channeling $700 million from the company's fund.
The US investigation showed more than $4.5 billion was diverted from the fund and used to purchase mansions, yachts and help fund “The Wolf Of Wall Street,” a Hollywood movie that ironically depicts corruption and fraud in the financial industry.
