By Cydney Posner

Here is a Bloomberg article citing the determination of U.K. Business Secretary Vince Cable, sympathizing with some of the goals of London's version of OWS (who have set up camps in London's financial district), to legislate if needed to limit executive pay. In a BBC interview, he said that the "high level of some executives' pay ‘causes a lot of public anger and indignation, and you know we've seen some of that spilling over into protests in recent weeks…. It does reflect a feeling that a small number of people have done extraordinarily well in the crisis, often undeservedly." While institutional shareholders need to be "active and socially responsible," Bloomberg reports that he added "if it does require legislation, of course we'll introduce it."

Calling the current system "dysfunctional," Cable observed that the "underlying problem which evidence has already demonstrated is that pay has far outstripped the performance of [the executives'] companies and there's no justification for that. " Cable has previously published a discussion paper outlining possible solutions to curbing excessive executive pay at underperforming companies: "Options that Cable is considering include giving shareholders a binding vote on pay and putting employees on company remuneration committees, according to the discussion paper. He's also looking at stiffening reporting requirements for listed companies, including mandatory publication of how much each board member gets and details of performance-related bonuses," Bloomberg reported.

Remember, say on pay was born in the U.K. also.

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