One of the first things António Horta-Osório did on taking the helm of Lloyds Banking Group was to end the bank's intransigence on payment protection insurance, taking a £3.2bn provision and driving the bank back into red.
It immediately caused problems for his predecessor Eric Daniels, who only weeks before had proclaimed a return to profitability as he was awarded a £1.45m bonus for his efforts at the bank.
The bank decided that it needed to take efforts to claw back a large proportion of the bonus from the former chief executive – and another of his close lieutenants at the time.
As Horta-Osório returned to his desk on Monday after a two-month leave of absence to deal with the fall-xout of failing to sleep for five consecutive days in October, it appears that the bank's board remains particularly determined to claw back the bonus awarded to Daniels.
This is not so much because of the size of the provision but because the board felt it had not been well-enough informed about PPI to realise that a sizeable provision would probably have been needed anyway if Lloyds had not walked away from the court case.
But while the directors might feel empowered by their knowledge about the potential scale of the PPI problem, the claw-back proceedings remain with the lawyers, making it too early to tell how this situation might unfold.
