High Court orders bank to pay bonus

ALLIED IRISH BANKS, which is facing majority state control, will have to pay a €160,000 bonus to an employee of its capital-markets unit after losing a court case.

The lender withheld the payment, due on John Foy’s 2008 performance, since February 2009 after scrapping discretionary bonuses in the wake of the Government guarantee of the country’s financial system the previous September. Edmund Holohan, master of the High Court, ruled against the bank in a summary judgment yesterday.

A lawyer for Foy told the court he is acting “for a number of employees” with similar cases. As many as 90 employees in AIB’s capital markets division have issued similar legal proceedings against AIB in the courts.