Thames Water defers controversial £2.5m in bonuses to bosses

The award of £2.5m in bonuses was paused earlier this year after the Guardian revealed the company chair wrongly told MPs that creditors had ‘insisted’ on the payments. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Thames Water has deferred awarding bosses retention payments totalling £2.5m, avoiding a potentially damaging pre-Christmas row as the heavily indebted utility scrambles to agree a multibillion-pound rescue deal.

Sources at the UK’s biggest water company confirmed the controversial retention payment package for 21 senior executives, which had been due to go out this month, would remain on hold until the new year.