Boards must make CEOs pay

Warren Buffett says chief executives should be held accountable for their companies' risk-management failures, complaining that bosses of firms that collapsed during the credit crisis "have largely gone unscathed", the FT reports.

"In my view a board of directors of a huge financial institution is derelict if it does not insist that its CEO bear full responsibility for risk control," Mr Buffett wrote in his annual letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway. "If he's incapable of handling the job, he should look for other employment."

Buffett says CEOs got off lightly. "Their fortunes may have diminished by the disasters they oversaw but they still live in grand style," he wrote. He said those responsible "should pay a heavy price - one not reimbursible by the companies they've damaged nor by insurance".