A SETTLEMENT to be signed in front of a New York judge as The Economist went to press on February 16th marked the end of years of attritional legal warfare. It was less clear who had won: the state of New York or Maurice (Hank) Greenberg, the now 91-year-old former chief executive of AIG, once the world’s largest insurer, but saved by a government bail-out in 2008.
Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney-general, had seemed in little doubt when he issued a surprise statement on February 10th. Hank Greenberg had admitted “to initiating, participating and approving two fraudulent transactions…that fundamentally misrepresented AIG’s finances.” He had agreed to pay a $9m fine.
Mr Greenberg, however, saw things differently. Within hours of Mr Schneiderman’s statement, his attorney, David Boies, issued a response, accusing the state of being false and misleading and noting that Mr Greenberg’s own carefully negotiated statement had no “reference to any accounting being fraudulent” or suggested that Mr Greenberg was aware of any fraud.
By February 13th Mr Greenberg was on the offensive. In a press...Continue reading
from Economics http://ift.tt/2lmhp8H
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment