As corporate golden handshakes go, awarding $1.4m to a chief executive barely nine months into the job merely for giving his shareholders hope is actually quite modest. But before the Nobel Peace Prize goes to Barack Obama’s head, the foundation should take a leaf out of the G20’s guidelines on bankers’ bonuses and apply a few constraints. Here’s how the citation should have been qualified for the post-crisis era:

1. Performance. “Strengthening international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples” is what Jack Welch would have called a “stretch target”. But it needs to be more specific. Our detailed compensation policy indicates just how many peoples would have to co-operate for Mr Obama to merit this award, and sets out how much stronger international diplomacy would have to be (measured on the accepted Annan Scale of good relations).