Re: Seriously?
All in all, it's not really comparable to a Western business 'integrity' maneuver. The bonuses at Sony are actual bonuses, not an accounting move to reduce overhead on the books. Before starting my own gig my annual salary at the last company I worked for was 90% less than my annual bonus. Sure, corporate bonuses here are officially a performance based variable, but overall it's an unspoken given. It's nothing more than a way to inflate the books by gaming the system.
Furthermore, here in the West, you can't refuse or return your pay. People don't realize that, but it's illegal as shit for your employer to accept returned salary or bonuses. That's old law that goes back to the days of mine and lumber mill 'company script', nobody will even discuss changing those laws.Courts won't even hear cases about employee theft until you've paid the employee/thief their full salary due.
In the rare cases where Western execs 'return' a bonus it's actually just deferred until the following fiscal year or converted to guaranteed vesting stocks. They really aren't giving shit back, they can't, even if they wanted to (unlikely).
All in all, it's an apples to donuts comparison. It's a pretty small price for the Sony execs to pay though. Not too awful long ago there would have been several new executive positions open at Sony where the new person could move in as soon as they got the blood off the floor and/or replaced the window with the Asian Executive shaped hole in it.