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REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Two former executives at an Icelandic bank which collapsed in the 2008 financial meltdown were sentenced to jail on Friday for fraud which led to a 53 million euro loss, in the first major trial of Icelandic bankers linked to the crisis. All three of the small North Atlantic island's top banks collapsed in quick succession in October 2008 due to big debts incurred during a rapid overseas expansion. Glitnir was the first to fall after the collapse of Lehman Brothers caused international credit markets to freeze up.

Documents given to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission show Goldman made $2.9bn on proprietary trades from AIG's bailout cash Goldman Sachs collected nearly $3bn (£1.9bn) from bailed-out US insurer American International Group (AIG) as a payout on bets it placed on its own account – with the bulk coming directly from taxpayers after AIG's rescue. The revelation was made in the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) report into 2008's financial meltdown. According to the US government-sponsored FCIC, AIG's $182bn bailout was necessary because the insurer's collapse threatened "cascading losses and collapses" throughout the financial system. Goldman received $12.9bn of the...

NEW YORK -- Even as the nation's biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save many of them, the companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives. The firms, accounting for more $350 billion in federal bailout funds, increased these perks and benefits 4 percent on average last year, according to an analysis of corporate disclosures filed in recent months. Some chief executives, such as Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey M. Peek of CIT Group, the major small-business lender...

The Treasury Department plans to tap Neel Kashkari, an assistant secretary of international affairs and a former Goldman Sachs banker, to oversee the government's $700 billion financial rescue program, sources familiar with the situation said yesterday. Kashkari has been a close adviser to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. on the credit crisis and helped draft the legislation for the massive rescue plan. He is expected to run the program on an interim basis until the Treasury finds a permanent head, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment. Kashkari's replacement would...

'Paulson's new 'Global Banking Corp.' IPO 2009 Forget Washington, forget Goldman: Our hero has global ambitions By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch Last update: 7:05 p.m. EDT Oct. 6, 2008Comments: 108ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- What if: Hank Paulson doesn't return to Wall Street and Goldman Sachs? Builds a global banking empire? Competes head-on with Goldman, Morgan, and other domestic and foreign banks? What if the money comes from offshore, from Asia and the Gulf? He's a red-hot brand! Expect a mega-IPO in 2009.