Richard S. Fuld Jr., CEO of bankrupt Lehman Brothers, will step down without any severance or bonus, according to The Associated Press.
Last year, Fuld was paid $34.4 million. He agreed to stay on as CEO while lawyers and other professionals dispersed Lehman’s assets to pay creditors after the investment bank went bust Sept. 15 in the largest bankruptcy case in U.S. history.
“His employment will end at the end of the year,” Lehman’s lead bankruptcy lawyer, Harvey Miller of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, told Bloomberg News during a break at a hearing in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. “He is being terminated. He will receive no severance or bonuses.”
A spokesperson said that Fuld offered to provide the transition cooperation without any severance or claim to other bonus payments at the end of his employment. Fuld will continue to be chairman of Lehman’s board and will stay on to help with the bankruptcy through the end of the year.
Fuld faced growing pressure to step down as critics accused him of contributing to the fall of the nation’s fourth-largest investment bank.