LONDON (Reuters) - A top European Union legal advisor will next week give a verdict on Britain's efforts to overturn a limit on banker bonuses imposed by the bloc, setting the tone for a court decision in 2015.
Britain, home to Europe's biggest financial services hub, is contesting an EU law that limits a bonus to no more than a banker's fixed pay or twice that amount with shareholder approval.
It has argued that giving EU regulators the power to enforce a cap goes beyond the bloc's treaties as pay should fall within the purview of member states.
An advisor to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg, where the challenge is being heard, will give an opinion on Nov. 20. Such opinions are non-binding but they typically partly or totally backed by the full court.
Banks have been bumping up fixed pay of top staff with new monthly or quarterly "allowances" to soften the cap's impact, but the bloc's European Banking Authority regulator said last month that most of these add-ons breach the EU law.
Britain has already lost one attempt in the ECJ to row back on centralised EU powers over a European law that gives another EU watchdog the power to impose curbs on a member state in relation to the short-selling of shares.
Britain's top banking supervisor has said it is too late to alter allowances paid so far ahead of the upcoming bonus round that starts in early 2015.
The ECJ is expected to rule on the UK challenge sometime in first half of next year.
(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Clara Ferreira Marques)