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Career Clinic: The unwritten rules of unwritten bonuses

The old City adage of 'my word is my bond' is harder to rely on when multimillion-pound bonus agreements are the order of the day

It used to be said that “my word is my bond” was the mechanism by which the City of London operated.

However, what is the position where that word is an assurance that a discretionary bonus scheme will be operated in a particular way, e.g. according to a particular formula, but the written contract simply asserts the employer's right to exercise its discretion as it sees fit?

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