Water company executives are set to receive multi-million pound payments that will fall outside the reach of a regulator's new power to ban bonuses, according to reporting by the Daily Mail. The article's headline highlights that despite public and political pressure over executive pay in the scandal-hit water industry, a loophole appears to allow bosses to continue receiving substantial payouts unaffected by the bonus-banning powers introduced to curb such rewards.

The provided article text does not include further detail beyond the headline, as the content supplied consists mainly of unrelated Daily Mail site navigation and other story teasers rather than the substantive body text of this report. Based on the headline alone, the story concerns the regulator's (understood to be Ofwat) ability to block bonuses at poorly performing water companies, and payments—likely termed differently, such as salary, pension contributions or long-term incentives—that are structured in a way that avoids being classed as a "bonus" and therefore escape the ban.