Kudos for City National

Chairman and CEO Russell Goldsmith certainly makes a nice wage: Base salary is $980,000, plus a target bonus of $1.5 million, a target equity award of $2.6 million, and of course stock options. But footnoted.org, which keeps close tabs on corporate filings, gave Goldsmith and the L.A.-based bank one of its gold stars for reining in various perks and protections.

The company won't pay excise taxes on any golden parachute payments anymore, and it will no longer give him a chance to quit (with severance) in the thirteenth month after a change in control. Severance calculations would be based on his target bonus, instead of his highest recent bonus, and to receive the payout, he'd have to lose his job -- a "single trigger" of just a change in control wouldn't be enough. The company also tightened the terms for termination absent some sort of deal.

Here's the 8-K the company filed this weeks that lays out the particulars.