United States-Pilgrims Pride.

The US bankruptcy court has approved an agreement that will see failed chicken group Pilgrim’s Pride hire its CEO and COO as consultants.

These are the same men who guided the company into bankruptcy and now they are being paid the equivalent of one million dollar a year salaries to direct the company out of the mess they themselves drove the company into.

They should be sat in a dock in atonement rather than on a board in management of the company they ruined, taking obscene amounts of money while members of the workforce lose their jobs and suppliers who have been loyal, have no where to market their livestock.

According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, former chief executive Clint Rivers and former chief operating officer Robert Wright will be retained in an advisory capacity.

Rivers will advise the company for four months, at US$83,000 per month, while Wright will offer consultation for three months, at $50,000 a month.

Rivers and Wright resigned from Pilgrim’s last December, a few weeks after the chicken producer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing volatile feed costs and high debt.

In January, the company’s bankruptcy trustees expressed a concern that consultancy payments to Rivers and Wright may violate bankruptcy rules.

In a court filing, Pilgrim’s bankruptcy trustee William Neary claimed: "the facts and circumstances of this case do not justify payments of such large amounts of money".

However, the move has now received court approval.