City high-flyer pay revealed; Calpers sues ratings agencies - papers

The City will be forced to publicly reveal the pay and bonuses of hundreds of traders and bank executives under a Treasury-backed plan to be released later today, reports The Guardian.

An interim report by Sir David Walker, former chairman of Morgan Stanley, into the workings of Britain's banks is expected to show that pay, bonuses and pension details should be disclosed for all staff who earn more than the average executive salary.

This could affect between 200 and 300 traders and senior executives at most big banks, although the report proposes to preserve the anonymity of individuals by listing remuneration in bands.

At present, only the pay of board members has to be disclosed. Full story...

CALPERS, THE CALIFORNIA state employees' pension fund and one of the most powerful fund managers in the US, is suing the three main credit rating agencies, saying they were negligent when they gave gold-plated ratings to mortgage derivatives that have since turned toxic.

The Independent says the lawsuit adds to the growing pressure on the agencies - Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch - over their role in inflating the credit bubble that turned spectacularly to bust.

Calpers claims that it lost around $1bn on securities that the agencies had said were as safe as government bonds.

The computer models used by the rating agencies to judge the creditworthiness of mortgage derivatives were "seriously flawed in conception and incompetently applied", the Calpers lawsuit alleges. Full story...

In other news...

GOLDMAN SACHS HAS caved in and allowed a critical blogger to continue airing his negative views about the investment bank on a controversially-named website.

In a surprising conclusion in what has been a real life David vs Goliath battle, Florida-based estate agent and investment adviser, Mike Morgan, will be allowed to keep his GoldmanSachs666.com site up and running.

The bank, which on Tuesday reported a 65pc rise in Q2 profits to $3.4bn (£2.07bn), has backed down after earlier threatening to shut down the site, which is designed to discuss what Mr Morgan considers to be the bank's failings.

"Mike Morgan never backs down," wrote Mr Morgan on the site, the name of which he has previously joked relates to the S&P500's most recent bear-market low - 666 points - rather than the number of the beast.