Germany approves bailout terms, sets salary cap

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FRANKFURT, Oct 20 (AP): The German cabinet Monday approved terms that banks will have to accept in order to benefit from its euro480 billion ($645 billion) bailout plan - including a salary cap of euro500,000 ($670,200) for top bank managers.
Those managers would also be obliged to forgo bonuses and dividend payments as long as their banks were indebted to the government.
The federal bailout plan approved by parliament Friday includes up to euro400 billion ($538 billion) in lending guarantees for banks, plus as much as euro80 billion ($107 billion) to recapitalise banks and, if necessary, buy up risky assets.
Leaders of Germany's largest commercial banks said this weekend that they would not immediately seek money on those terms.
Josef Ackermann, the chief executive of Germany's biggest private bank, Deutsche Bank AG, has said his company does not need capital from the state.
Martin Blessing, the CEO of Germany's no 2 bank, Commerzbank AG, was quoted as saying by the Bild Saturday newspaper that his company would look at the package and see "whether it comes into question for us."
Yet the salary cap approved Monday has to be a major sticking point for some banks.