A federal judge has ended a dispute over document access between American International Group and the Starr companies controlled by former AIG Chairman Maurice Greenberg.

U.S. District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in Manhattan said Wednesday he was granting equal access to the material, which includes regulatory filings and other business records, to both AIG as well as C.V Starr & Co. Inc. and Starr International Company.

Starr brokerage and managing general agent entities and AIG were once linked. After his ouster from AIG during an investigation of accounting irregularities, Mr. Greenberg retained control of Starr and began a bitter separation process from his former company that has led to a number of continuing court battles over clients and business operations.

Since Mr. Greenberg's departure last year, current AIG board members have sold their stock in Starr, which holds a substantial portion of AIG stock.

The documents at issue have all been impounded by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has an investigation underway that is probing the alleged misuse of finite reinsurance to boost AIG's balance sheet and persons “who may have participated in AIG's securities laws violations.”

Earlier this year, AIG agreed to pay $1.64 billion to settle state and federal charges of securities fraud, bid-rigging and failure to pay proper contributions to various state workers' compensation funds.

Brooke Parker, a representative for Starr, said the company regards the judge's ruling as a victory since they have been pursuing access to the documents since April 2005. An AIG spokesman, Chris Winans, had no comment.

Lawyers for AIG said in court that the documents were in “hundreds of boxes” located on six floors of AIG's New York headquarters at 70 Pine Street, as well as at “other locations around the city and around the world where there are AIG documents located.”

The judge said no original files can be removed, copies are to be made, and if there are disputes over a particular item he will rule on it.

Special Reports /

Starr Gets Access To Its Documents At AIG

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