UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH) became one of the most prominent players in an options backdating scandal where award dates were altered  to make them more profitable for executives.

In December, former UnitedHealth CEO William McGuire agreed to give-up a staggering $420 million in addition to $200 million he had already returned.

Now, according to the WSJ:

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Thursday said a federal judge has little leeway to review or reject a stock-options backdating settlement between UnitedHealth and former Chief Executive William McGuire, increasing the likelihood that the deal will be approved.

In a rare major media story, the Associated Press does a straight CEO pay piece rather than a general look at the climate of executive compensation:

Stephen Sanger got a nearly 14 percent raise in his final year as the chairman and chief executive of General Mills Inc. (NYSE: GIS), according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sanger, who retired as head of the company that makes Wheaties and Cheerios cereals at the end of its fiscal 2008 year in May, earned $13.8 million, the filing said. That compared to earnings of $12.1 million in the previous year.

Sanger's base salary was nearly $1.3 million, and he also was given $3.5 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation for meeting financial targets, the regulatory filing said.

In addition, Sanger was given miscellaneous compensation of $470,701. This included company contributions to savings plans as well as perks valued at $192,184; those included $50,567 for personal air travel, $16,806 for use of the executive car and $40,200 in discounts when he bought the car. He was also given $15,054 for financial planning, $32,772 for insurance and $17,298 for unused vacation days.

The bulk of his compensation for the fiscal year was in stock and option awards valued at more than $8.5 million when they were granted in June 2007.

On August 18th The Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy will release their annual report on CEO pay - this year highlighting how the tax and accounting systems favor high paying positions through:

• Preferential capital gains treatment of carried interest
• Unlimited deferred pay
• Offshore deferred compensation
• Unlimited deductibility of executive compensation
• Stock option accounting double standard

Expect in-depth coverage here when the report is released.

From The Motley Fool's always attentive writers:

Starbucks (NDAQ: SBUX) provided the latest example of how walking out the door can actually be very lucrative for corporations' top brass.

It's no news that Starbucks is cutting costs. Its plans include layoffs and some store closures. Somehow, I doubt that baristas will receive the kind of sweet deal former Starbucks Coffee International President James Alling is getting as part of his "separation agreement." Alling will receive a lump-sum payment equal to an entire year's salary; last year, his base salary was $600,000.

Alling will also take home the equivalent of the cost of health-care coverage for one year.

The Chicago Tribune has an interesting, even if unconvincing, piece that suggests stock based compensation resulting from shareholder pressure led to GM's unstable financial condition:

First, a bit of history. Wall Street and institutional investors' pension funds, mutual funds and trusts began insisting in the 1990s that companies return more cash to shareholders. They claimed that managers were squandering resources on lavish perks and misguided acquisitions.

In the early years of the revolution, managers of U.S. corporations occasionally said no to investor demands. A couple of things got rid of that behavior. First, CEOs who bucked shareholders sometimes found themselves out of a job. Second, executive share ownership and stock options became the coin of the realm. Eventually they comprised the bulk of CEO pay. And now, CEOs wanted the same thing as owners: high returns to owning stock.

And now back to GM (NYSE: GM). Because of its size, the company was ground central for a shareholder revolution. Robert Stempel, chief executive officer, lost his job in 1992 due to pressure from institutional investors. Subsequently, the company raised the percentage of executive compensation based on stock ownership and stock options.

What happened to payout ratios? From 1996 to 2000, GM delivered more than $20 billion to shareholders: $13 billion in multiple repurchases and an additional $7 billion in dividends.

It's impossible to say where GM would be today had it spent some of that $20 billion on research and development and a rainy-day pension fund. But surely it would be a far better place than here.

From Forbes:

After clocking a juicy 38% collective pay increase in 2006, CEOs of the 500 largest companies in the U.S.--as measured by a composite ranking of sales, profits, assets and market value--saw their compensation dwindle an average 15% in 2007. (Chalk up much of that volatility to performance-based compensation packages tied to flagging earnings and share prices.) Meanwhile, [the 13 female CEOs out of the group of 500] saw their pay jump an average 27%.

Not that the pay gap between male and (the few) female CEOs doesn't persist. The average take, including salary and bonuses, for all 500 CEOs was $12.8 million--double the female average of $6.5 million.

From Financial Week:

CEOs who are hired externally cost more than those promoted from within.

In fact, chief executives hired externally made far more than their counterparts with at least two years’ tenure as CEO, according to an analysis conducted by executive compensation research firm Equilar. At small-cap firms, externally hired CEOs received a median pay package that was 79.8% higher than that of tenured CEOs. Large-cap companies paid external hires 51.1% more and midcap companies paid 10.2% more.

“Companies pay the premium because most people coming in from the outside are stepping into a bad situation,” [Equilar research manager Alexander Cwirko-Godycki] added. “Making the move [to CEO] is less risky for the executive from within because he already knows the company and may know the board well.”

From the USA TODAY:

JetBlue CEO Dave Barger will take a 50% pay cut for the second half of 2008, something Reuters calls "a show of solidarity with employees as the low-cost carrier struggles with soaring fuel prices and a slowing U.S. economy." Barger's base salary is $500,000 a year, presumably meaning that a 50% cut applied to the second half of the year will shave $125,000 from his salary. JetBlue disclosed the pay cut in a federal filing Monday, saying that Barger is making the move "in recognition of the challenges faced by the Company and its employees in the current industry environment."