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At Louisiana health-care company LHC Group Inc., the board’s compensation committee has approved a 90% raise for the chief executive over

Median pay for chief executives of the biggest U.S. companies slipped 4.6% last year, but the link between annual compensation and shareholder returns remained weak.

Large U.S.

Director pay has received scant attention over the years as investors, regulators and the public have focused on soaring executive compensation. 

A financial obfuscation of the dot-com era is making a comeback: Hundreds of U.S. companies are trumpeting adjusted net income, adjusted sales and “adjusted Ebitda.”

It has been a big week so far for the market cops at the Securities & Exchange Commission: Each day brought a new multimillion-dollar settlement, most involving high-profile people or companies—Bank of America (BAC), General Electric (GE), and two former executives of American International Group (AIG), plus two smaller trading firms.

President Barack Obama's plan to overhaul financial regulation covers everything from mortgages to hedge funds. But reform efforts in Europe may prove more significant for U.S. companies. European regulators are hashing out new rules for banks, insurers, and money managers that could put U.S. firms at a disadvantage.

More problem banks and less FDIC money mean tough takeover rules could eventually be loosened

World leaders are talking bravely about fixing the global financial system. As the Group of Twenty heads toward an important summit in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24-25, they are vowing to bang out a regulatory structure that will keep rich, careless bankers from once again driving their firms to ruin and then getting bailed out by taxpayers.