No Salary for Bank of America CEO: Report

Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis in a March 27, 2009 file photo in Washington, DC. Lewis reportedly will not take any salary this year.

(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Sorry, no paycheck for you. That's the unprecedented demand put on Bank of America (BAC) CEO Ken Lewis by the Treasury's pay czar Kenneth Feinberg. According to The Wall Street Journal, the BoA chief has been asked to give back the roughly $1 million he's collected so far this year and forgo another $1.5 million still due to him. Oh, and no 2009 bonus either. But don't feel too bad for Lewis. "Mr. Feinberg pushed for the deal because he thought the package of retirement benefits and unvested stock Mr. Lewis takes with him when he steps down at year's end—currently worth at least $69.3 million, according to securities filings—was large enough, and possibly too big," the newspaper writes. While Lewis "voluntarily agreed" to the arrangement without much fuss, others on Wall Street were outraged. "This is punitive," exclaimed banking analyst Nancy Bush of NAB Research.

The New York Times notes that the Lewis forfeiture comes as the controversy around BoA's Merrill Lynch acquisition intensifies. Citing sources, the NYT says BoA will turn over documents implicating Wall Street law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in a massive shareholder cover-up. The firm "initially advised Bank of America to withhold information about the perilous state of Merrill from the bank’s shareholders, but later advised it to alert federal officials to the growing losses, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter," the newspaper writes.

The worst of the recession is over for Google (GOOG), the business press are declaring this morning. The Net juggernaut astounded Wall Street with a recession-defying third quarter profit on Thursday. Sales were up 7 percent and net profit rose a whopping 27 percent to $1.64 billion from the year earlier period thanks to a solid rebound in online advertising. "While there's obviously a lot of uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us and we're seeing lots of signs of that in all of the industries that we pay attention to," Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on a conference call following the results, the WSJ reports. The Financial Times takes the statement a step further, paraphrasing Schmidt as saying "the advertising revival appeared to have spread across the Internet more broadly." According to the NYT, Google plans to rehire thousands and once again rev up the acquisitions and investment. "Mr. Schmidt said that while some uncertainty remained about the pace of the recovery, Google is 'very optimistic about the future. We now have the business confidence to invest heavily in the next phase of innovation,'� the newspaper writes.