In an outburst reminiscent of the most heated arguments over “fat cat” pay, one aggrieved shareholder at Royal Dutch Shell’s annual meeting on Tuesday bellowed: “I find this bonus culture repulsive and I beg people to vote against it.”

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant went on to suffer a severe dressing down when nearly half of its voting shareholders failed to back a plan to pay one-off retention bonus- es of stock worth up to €1m (£801,000) to three of its executives to entice them not to quit their jobs before 2011.