<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"The oil driller committed the corporate public relations blunder of the year, then followed up with an empty apology. What will it do for an encore?\nMaking full use of its April 1 filing date, Transocean\u2019s \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\trig\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t proxy statement deemed 2010 the \u201Cbest year in safety performance in our company&amp;#8217;s history,\u201D by certain statistical measures. In a small oversight, those stats ignored the 11 deaths caused last April when the company\u2019s Deepwater Horizon drillship exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Nine of those killed worked for Transocean.\n\n  \nA company at sea\nWhen this disconnect came to light, Transocean retreated a half step. It issued a statement conceding that the safety claim \u201Cmay have been insensitive\u201D and adding that the company \u201Ccontinues to mourn the loss of these friends and colleagues.\u201D\n\u201CNothing in the proxy was intended to minimize this tragedy or diminish the impact it has had on those who lost loved ones,\u201D the company said.\nBut you could swear the impact Transocean is really concerned about is the one on its executives\u2019 paychecks. Transocean made the ludicrous safety claim to justify paying five top executives $898,282 in bonuses \u2013 a quarter of which are explicitly tied to the company\u2019s safety performance.\nIt seems like it should be hard to qualify for a safety-related bonus in a year in which one of your rigs blows up, causing deaths and dozens of injuries. Indeed, Transocean itself made that case in 2009, when it withheld executive bonuses after four of its workers were killed in workplace accidents.\nThe board\u2019s compensation committee \u201Ctook this extraordinary action to underscore the company&amp;#8217;s commitment to safety and to increase the incentive for executive officers to promote the goal of an incident-free workplace and, in particular, the avoidance of future fatal accidents,\u201D Transocean said in last year\u2019s proxy statement.\nBut for some reason, Transocean has lost interest in increasing that incentive this time round. Friday\u2019s proxy statement makes no mention of withholding bonuses for the sake of putting safety first. Instead, it shows that the compensation committee had the option to pay execs 115% of their safety-related bonus target &amp;#8212; and decided instead to pay them 67% of that sum, what with the deaths and all.\nThat sort of hair-splitting isn\u2019t going to put Transocean\u2019s directors in the next edition of Profiles in Boardroom Courage.\nTransocean didn\u2019t comment, but it seems safe to say the company isn\u2019t going to do an about-face and have the executives return the bonuses. That\u2019s too bad, because a company that truly put safety first \u2013 or is really concerned about the sensitivities of dead employees\u2019 families and friends &amp;#8212; might have done so.\nAfter all, the top five executives \u2013 CEO Steven Newman, finance chief Ricardo Rosa, top lawyer Eric Brown, and executive vice presidents Arnaud Bobillier and Ihab Toma \u2013 together earned $19.6 million in compensation in 2010. Giving back a measly 5% of that sum is not going to put anyone in the poor house &amp;#8212; and come to think of it, should that even be a consideration?\nBut this being Transocean, first we must consider how the execs feel. \u00A0Despite the fact that 2010 was a debacle that will be forever remembered as the year the Deepwater Horizon blew up, Transocean moved last year to pay Rosa, Brown, Bobillier and Toma some $2.8 million in stock-based \u201Cspecial retention awards.\u201D\nBecause, needless to say, every oil drilling company is going to be bidding for these guys after the great job they\u2019ve done. It\u2019s starting to look like every day is April Fool\u2019s Day at Transocean.\nAlso on Fortune.com:\n\nJob seekers&amp;#8217; lost decade\nU.S. budget: A Greek tragedy\nWhy the Fed isn&amp;#8217;t going hiking\n\nFollow me on Twitter \n  @ColinCBarr\n."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2011/04/04/bonuses-come-first-at-transocean/>