AllianceBerstein was recently ordered to pay $5.3 million to two former employees who felt they were wrongfully terminated in the company's probe of mutual fund abuses. The interesting part is that the company only paid $800 million to settle those charges. We've seen a spate of companies that took action following fund abuse revelations end up being targeted by let-go employees. Merrill Lynch and Wachovia have been hit with similar orders. Arbitration panels at the NYSE and Nasd take a different approach to their punitive sackings, the Financial Times notes. They make their decisions based on fairness. So far they seem to be sympathetic to the idea that employees' supervisors knew what they were doing and generally approved.

For more:
- here's the article Financial Times