AWB Limited paid the head of its Geneva operations more than $11 million during the 2007-08 financial year.
Thierry Dubois, general manager of AWB (Geneva), was listed as being paid $6.5 million in a retirement package on top of his $240,000 in base pay and $12,000 in other benefits for four months' work.
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But it has now been revealed that Mr Dubois was also paid $4.25 million in 2007-08 as a bonus for work carried out the previous year.
With pay of more than $11 million, he became one of the highest paid executives in an Australian company.
Mr Dubois earned about $2.5 million more than Westpac Bank's chief executive officer Gail Kelly (her remuneration was recorded as $8.5 million in 2007-08), but just less than the pay of Qantas' former CEO Geoff Dixon ($12.2 million), ANZ head Mike Smith ($13 million) and Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo ($13.4 million) for the same year.
Ms Kelly was recently named as Forbes magazine's 18th most powerful woman in the world.
Mr Dubois was paid nearly five times that of his boss, Gordon Davis, who was recorded as receiving $2.3 million in 2007-08.
Mr Dubois resigned from the company on January 26, 2008, and was replaced by its then shipping manager Piero Ravano, who earned a $2.3 million sign-on bonus paid by AWB last financial year.
The revelations come as AWB was embroiled in another controversy when former director Xavier Martin alleged the company's officers offered him a financial inducement to change sides to support constitutional reform in 2008.
AWB referred the matter to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission but is yet to hear back from the corporate regulator.
Mr Martin stands by his claim reported exclusively in The Weekly Times two weeks ago.
AWB's 2008 annual report shows Mr Dubois was paid $6.75 million in 2007-08 and $6.57 million in 2006-07.
But the 2007 annual report shows he only earned $2.09 million in 2006-07.
Inquiries by The Weekly Times have discovered an extra $4.25 million in a bonus actually paid to him in 2007-08 was retrospectively recorded against the 2006-07 financial year.
Along with a $95,000 adjustment to his base pay and a $133,000 alteration to "other benefits", his total pay packet was retrospectively increased from $2.09 million to $6.57 million in 2006-07.
An AWB spokesman said the treatment of Mr Dubois' payments was made due to "accrual accounting". He said AWB (Geneva) contributed earnings of $51.9 million in 2006-07.
Last week, the Productivity Commission recommended the Corporations Act be changed to ensure publicly-listed companies record actual remuneration paid to senior management in the year they receive it.
