NEW YORK (REUTERS) - General Electric shareholders rejected top executives' compensation packages, including a payout of as much as US$230 million (S$307 million) to CEO Larry Culp, at the industrial conglomerate's annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday (May 4). While the shareholder vote was non-binding, the move was a rare rebuke of a major corporation's handling of its executive pay. It comes after GE laid off 20,000 workers last year. It is set to embolden corporate governance reform advocates who have criticised the shielding of CEOs from the financial fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost cuts companies often choose to implement. As part of an extension of Mr Culp's employment contract to 2024, GE last August canceled old shares given to him and granted him new shares tied to lower financial targets. Proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc (ISS) and Glass Lewis, opposed the pay packages, arguing that lowering the bar on the performance targets was unjustified and the stock award too generous. GE countered that the uncertainty of the pandemic made it difficult to incentivise Mr Culp without lowering his performance targets, and that an extension of ...