A former AIG CEO, Hank Greenberg, files suit against the people saying the company wasn’t bailed out enough. Matt Taibbi sums up Greenberg’s character in recent Rolling Stones post.
Even though a federal judge ruled that Greenberg was a conspirator in that case, and even though that scandal led to AIG in 2006 paying what at the time was the biggest settlement ever ($1.6 billion, paid to Eliot Spitzer’s New York state regulators and George W. Bush’s Justice Department and SEC), Greenberg has always denied responsibility, and his bumlicking minions in the financial press like Maria Bartiromo are still protesting his innocence long after everybody on Wall Street forgot about the case (that was nineteen billion-dollar scandals ago!).
Moreover, despite the fact that Greenberg personally settled for $15 million in another fraud case that led to a $2 billion accounting restatement by AIG, he’s never accepted responsibility for any of his actions there, either. In fact, even after he paid the $15 million in that case, and even after AIG restated its balance sheet to the tune of $2 billion, Greenberg went out of his way to say the restatement was mostly “unnecessary” and that he had “no responsibility” for any fraud. That’s just the kind of guy he is.
Why is it necessary to go over all of this ancient history? Because it was these Greenberg-instigated scandals that set in motion the events that led to AIG’s collapse later on. When Greenberg was forced out on the heels of the reinsurance scandal, credit agencies downgraded AIG. This and subsequent downgrades are what eventually sank the firm.
Jon Stewart puts it all into context on last night’s The Daily Show
