According to estimates and figures the Wall Street Journal has dug up, anyway. They quote a man defending the payouts and using the textbook banker bonus defence.

Banks should pay huge bonuses, says a corporate lawyer who advises on pay because:

"You can't just say, 'There is a lot of populist anger out there, so we are not going to compensate our executives who have worked hard to recover some shareholder value.'

Good work Mr. Corporate Lawyer man. Just take the right to millions, or tens of millions, as a given and work from there. No-one will notice.