David Boies, the noted attorney defending former American International Group Chairman Maurice Greenberg against accusations of accounting fraud, said in a speech yesterday that his client's high profile made him a target for state prosecutors.
"There is no doubt that Mr. Greenberg was singled out for a level of scrutiny that would not be applied ordinarily to others–even in AIG–who may have been engaging in the same conduct," he said.
Mr. Boies, who represented former Vice President Al Gore in his presidential election recount battle, has been representing Mr. Greenberg in the various legal battles that have erupted since his ouster as chief executive officer of AIG last spring. That was in the wake of allegations of personal and company wrongdoing centering on accounting and broker compensation issues.
Speaking at a New York Law School event on the "Rule of Law and the Lawyering Process," Mr. Boies explained that disadvantages in the justice system need not be limited to obvious instances such as the plight of African Americans in the South prior to the Civil Rights movement.
In complaining that his client has been singled out, he did not mention the name of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, whose office has investigated Mr. Greenberg and lodged civil charges against him.
Mr. Greenberg, through a spokesman, commented in the past that Mr. Spitzer's actions are political.
The attorney general, a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, has in the past had no comment on such accusations
At this point Mr. Greenberg faces only civil fraud charges in New York. However, a cooperating witness in a federal criminal case the government has brought in Virginia over AIG accounting infractions has identified him as the mastermind behind a phony finite reinsurance transaction.
Mr. Boies said at the time of the alleged accounting wrongdoing involving the use of finite risk products to bolster company reserves, accounting standard-setters had not firmly stated how the products should be treated.
Mr. Boies also has been representing Mr. Greenberg's controlling interest in the C.V. Starr umbrella of agencies, which formerly represented AIG. Starr now is in a battle with the insurer over what its dealings can be with various clients since its split from AIG.
Mr. Boies noted it was clear from the outset, because the two entities' ties go back nearly 50 years, they had to be separate operations in order to conduct the businesses they were in.
He also added that an AIG effort in federal court to claim ownership of Starr through a doctrine of "constructive trust" would be doomed as a mere effort for the company to unjustly enrich itself. "I myself would like to own Starr. Who wouldn't?" he said.
Mr. Boies said the age of electronic mail and the Internet have created new headaches in the discovery process as the amount of material has increased exponentially. "People tend to say in e-mails things they would never say on the phone or even in a letter in the amusingly misguided sense of confidentiality," he said.
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