The idea that remuneration can be withheld and subject to clawback if there is “malus” is well known to employees in financial services. However, the Bank of England is proposing going one step beyond that – allowing clawback for bonuses that have been paid out (and presumably, spent).

For the uninitiated and non-Latin speakers, "malus" refers to where there is evidence of the employee having misbehaved, made material errors, or where the firm or business unit the employee worked in suffers a material downturn in financial performance or material failure of risk management.