Barclays director opposed Bob Diamond bonus Alison Carnwath, the head of Barclays remuneration committee, apparently argued against the award of the £2.7m bonus to Mr Diamond, but failed to persuade fellow board members, including chairman Marcus Agius, to back her view. However, the bonus dispute ahead of Barclays's annual shareholder meeting last month led the bank to offer investors a concession on Mr Diamond and finance director Chris Lucas's, annual bonuses that means they will only receive the full award if the lender achieves a return on equity in excess of its cost of equity. Mr Agius continued: "At the end of this year's process, as in all prior years, all remuneration decisions were unanimously supported by each of the non-executive directors. Any suggestion otherwise is baseless. Among the controversial aspects of Mr Diamond's compensation package was also a £5.75m "tax equalisation" payment made by the bank to cover the cost of a tax liability incurred by the banker when he relocated from New York to London to take charge of the bank at the start of last year. Mr Agius has pledged to avoid a repeat of the revolt next year, saying last month that he would dedicate much of his time to improving relations with the bank's investors. However, the Barclays chairman also insisted that the bank had to be able to continue paying large bonuses to its staff to be competitive. We can't pay zero bonuses. The commercial consequences would be dire," he told shareholders during last month's meeting. Initially booed by some shareholders at the meeting, Ms Carnwath was applauded as she promised to change the way the bank paid staff and pledged that, "the balance of rewards between employees and shareholders" had to change.