A U.S. judge on Friday rejected a plan to pay millions of dollars in bonuses to top executives of bankrupt miner Molycorp Inc., two days after GT Advanced Technologies Inc. failed to get approval of a similar plan, Reuters reported on Friday. Molycorp, which filed for bankruptcy in June, had said that the bonus plan would align executives' goals with those of its creditors to maintain the value of the rare earth miner's business. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi ruled at a Friday hearing that some of the incentive targets amounted to payments for staying in their job. He criticized one target as "file a report and hang around." Molycorp's creditors and the United Steelworkers union opposed the plan, which could have paid up to $2.9 million in bonuses, saying it was being funded in part by idling a California mine and laying off the workforce there. On Wednesday, Bankruptcy Judge Henry Boroff, for the second time rejected former Apple Inc supplier GT's plan to pay up to $2.2 million in bonuses. "In essence, the insiders seek bonus compensation for doing a job they are already obligated to do," Boroff wrote in his opinion.
