Goldman's Board Rejects Pay Demands

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- The board of

Goldman Sachs

(GS) - Get Report

rejected demands from several shareholders related to compensation matters, the firm disclosed in a more than 200-page 10-K filing Monday.

Among other things, shareholders demanded the "board of directors

investigate compensation awards over recent years, take steps to recoup alleged excessive compensation, and adopt certain reforms," the filing stated, adding "after considering the demand letters, Group Inc.'s board of directors rejected the demands."

Though Goldman has outperformed many competitors, including

Morgan Stanley

(MS) - Get Report

,

Citigroup

(C) - Get Report

and

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

through the crisis, it has drawn fire from many members of Congress and the public who say the bank benefited from preferential treatment, for example, when it received billions of dollars in payments as part of the government's bailout of

AIG

(AIG) - Get Report

.

Goldman has taken steps to defuse the criticism, for example when it paid CEO Lloyd Blankfein (pictured above) his compensation of $9 million for 2009 entirely in stock. That figure was about half the amount pulled down by his

JPMorgan Chase

(JPM) - Get Report

counterpart Jamie Dimon, even though Goldman earned about 10 times as much on a per share basis.

Goldman also made the smallest payouts relative to revenue in the company's history in 2009,

according to The Wall Street Journal.

--

Written by Dan Freed in New York

.