They should also pay people who robbed banks a million bonus hence they have an incentive to stay away from banks?

What a fracking pathetic idea - try the same version they do with regular criminals they get sentenced 50 years jail if they screw up - where does a f..... judge get the idea that this people are uniquely skilled.
I think if they get a bonus Fuld should pay them from his own pocket he managed to rip out a few hundred million from Lehman he still has - why would he deserve to keep any of it.

Excerpt

Lehman Bankruptcy Judge Approves $50 Million Bonuses

By Linda Sandler

Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s plan to pay $50 million in bonuses to employees handling derivatives contracts was approved by a judge who said the payments provide essential incentives to employees with “unique skills.”

Lehman, the investment bank liquidating in bankruptcy, asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck in New York last month for permission to pay the bonuses to about 230 full-time employees unwinding the contracts. The judge today sanctioned the payments as bankers, under attack after two years of failures and bailouts, risk more public fury by awarding year- end bonuses, according to a Bloomberg National Poll this month.

Lehman told Peck in a Nov. 25 filing that the derivatives team had brought in more than $8 billion in cash and settled 17 percent of the contracts during the bankruptcy.

A bonus pool “designed to motivate and reward employees” in the group will help to maximize the value of the remaining contracts, it said.

Diana Adams, the U.S. trustee who oversees Lehman’s bankruptcy, said in a Dec. 11 filing she questioned why Lehman needs to pay bonuses to people for merely doing their jobs, particularly vice presidents who have “limited authority” except for signing papers.

She assented to the plan after Lehman said it was primarily designed to help employees and there are only four officers in the group.

Lehman filed the biggest U.S. bankruptcy in September 2008 with assets of $639 billion. Creditors including UBS AG, the New York Giants, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and individual bondholders filed $824 billion in claims against the company.

The case is In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., 08-13555, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in New York at lsandler@bloomberg.net.