UBS Faces Pay Backlash as Weber Becomes Chairman

ZURICH (Reuters) - UBS became the latest bank to face the anger of its shareholders over executive pay on Thursday, as investors queued up to voice their complaints in a packed meeting that echoed recent protests at Credit Suisse and Barclays.

Rumors that a deal will be reached "soon" have gone on for weeks. Indeed announcements of an expected agreement today have already hit new snags. For the sake of argument, let's assume a deal does go through and crunch the latest numbers to see what the situation looks like from the point of view of Greece before and after the deal. Please consider Greece Needs EU145 Billion in Second Aid Package

British insurer Aviva said Thursday that more than half of its shareholders have failed to back its executive pay awards, in the latest sign of growing investor anger over boardroom pay.Aviva said in a statement after its annual general meeting in London that 54 percent of shareholders voted against the insurer's remuneration report.Including abstentions, almost 59 percent of investors failed to endorse the group's executive pay policy.

Responding to calls for companies to “pay their fair share”, Mark Otty, Ernst & Young’s managing partner for Europe, Middle East and Africa, claimed a moral tax code would not work as companies had a duty to pay the lowest rate permitted, reports The Telegraph.

Canadian soldiers in northern Afghanistan are being forced to return danger pay they had previously been awarded, Postmedia News has learned. The troops, training the Afghan military in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, are required to pay back the government between $900 and $1,600 each, depending on the individual’s pay. About 30 Canadian soldiers are now in Mazar-i-Sharif, but the repayments will affect about 100 soldiers who have worked at that location training Afghans between June 1, 2012 and Feb. 3, 2013.

Public revolts by shareholders are uncommon in Canada and no major company has ever suffered the ignominy of losing a say-on-pay vote. That could change Wednesday.