Ex-AIG CEO still wants damages in bailout case, will appeal
Source: AP
NEW YORK (AP) The former chairman and CEO of insurer AIG says he still believes he's entitled to damages as a result of the government's 2008 bailout of the company, and will appeal a court's ruling against him.
A federal judge gave Maurice Greenberg a partial win Monday when he ruled that the $85 billion government bailout was unfairly punitive and that the government was not entitled to take ownership of AIG in return for its bailout loan. But the judge said the government doesn't have to pay damages to Greenberg and other AIG shareholders.
Greenberg says he will appeal that part of the ruling but is pleased with the rest.
Greenberg wants more than $40 billion in damages. He said Tuesday that if the government wasn't allowed to demand equity in AIG as a condition of the bailout, it's also not entitled to the money it received from selling AIG shares later.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/1a99f709016a4ca6a1d704ea656d17b9/ex-aig-ceo-still-wants-damages-bailout-case-will-appeal
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This story has been corrected to show the judge didn't find the government violated the Fifth Amendment by failing to give fair compensation to AIG shareholders.
TexasTowelie
(112,701 posts)Not only does he believe that he is entitled to the money from AIG, but most of the business for Starr Insurance is written through a Bermuda subsidiary that does not pay corporate taxes and uses salaried workers in the US that work 70-80 hours a week. I know from personal experience.
ToxMarz
(2,169 posts)This was definitely a case of the Govt picking winners and losers. They were all complicit in the scheme that threatened to collapse our entire economy (and the rest of the world) and we were held hostage. The winners (JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, et al) chose who should be the sacrificial lambs in order to secure a Govt bailout. If AIG or any others are entitled to anything, it must come from the chosen winners and not the taxpayers. AIG was chosen because it insured all of the others bad paper and no one else but the US Treasury could guarantee 100% insurance payout on the worthless paper they sold in the name of "protecting investors".
MFrohike
(1,980 posts)The Fed and Treasury are and were ideologically captured. They didn't give the bankers a choice in the bailout.
AIG was chosen because it was a convenient to launder funds. It was used to hide the insolvency of the investment banks.