£20m Grasso expenses poser for NYSE

THE New York Stock Exchange's provision of $36m (£20.3m) for expenses related to former chairman Dick Grasso's payout have sparked uncomfortable questions for the bourse about how it proposes to deal with the ongoing scandal.

Outrage over Grasso's $188m compensation drove him from the NYSE and sparked wide-ranging reforms there.

But while the Exchange has said it wants to recover at least some of the payments to Grasso, little has been said about how it plans to do it.

Grasso has already received more than $140m, but his lawyers say he is still owed at least $50m.

'The board is seeking to recover compensation and benefits,' the NYSE said in its report.

But the so-called 'Big Board' admits that it may fail and says the $36m provision could even increase if Grasso's most recent contract 'is found to be valid and the payments were deemed to be allowable and appropriate under the law'.

Meanwhile, New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer, whose aid the NYSE enlisted to press Grasso for partial repayment, said he expects to make a decision in the 'very near term' on his plans in the affair.

'My guess is that in the near term, we're going to figure out what we're going to do and announce what we're going to do and move forward one way or the other,' Spitzer told reporters.