Pannone's top earner saw 62 per cent pay uplift in 2009-10

The substantial increase on the previous year’s payout of £246,000 was as a result of a performance award, according to managing partner Emma Holt.

She told The Lawyer that the system that underpinned the payout would change, but declined to elaborate on further details.

Holt declined to name the partner in question, but claimed that long-serving managing and senior partner Joy Kingsley, who left the firm on 30 June 2010 after a quarter of a century, was not the recipient of the package. It is understood that the person who received the top payout remains a serving partner at the firm.

Kingsley was part of a select group of seven senior partners that were paid 10 per cent above the top of the equity as part of her normal remuneration. In addition she would have been eligible for four months pay after the end of the financial year in respect of her notice period and gardening leave terminating on 31 August 2010.

It is understood that long-serving partners who retire from Pannone and do not go to a competitor firm receive an additional sum to the value of £50,000 but that Kingsley declined this bonus in favour of shares in a search engine optimisation company, I-Com, in which Pannone held a stake (11 September 2006).

Holt decline to confirm the details of Kingsley’s remuneration.

The accounts also reveal that the total number of members at Pannone fell by two to 60, that the total number of staff, excluding members, dropped by 10 per cent to 607 and that the total number of support staff fell by 13 per cent.

Kingsley declined to comment.