The Anglo-Norwegian engineering group Kvaerner reportedly handed a �3.65m pension package to its former chief executive Kjell Almskog when he stepped down last autumn.

The payout was made despite an earlier agreement that his former employer ABB should have been responsible for much of the sum, according to the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv.

The newspaper said Mr Almskog has since received a second full pension from ABB.

Quoting former chairman Christian Bjelland who negotiated the Kvaerner pension deal, the paper said that Kvaerner's intention had been that it should only have been responsible for the period after Mr Almskog's ABB career.

Mr Almskog held the top job at Kvaerner for three years after a long career with ABB where he was one of former chairman Percy Barnevik's most loyal senior executives.

Mr Barnevik resigned from ABB last month.

Then, last week, after controversy over his ABB pension, he resigned from his post as chairman of Investor, the powerful Swedish Wallenberg-family's industrial holding company which is also a major ABB shareholder.