Tentative May Trial Date Set For Ex-AIG Chief Greenberg

NU Online News Service, Jan. 20, 10:54 a.m. EST

 Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, formerly the chief executive of American International Group Inc. (AIG), could go on trial in May for his alleged role in a sham reinsurance transaction with Gen Re Corp.

New York State Supreme Court Judge Charles E. Ramos tentatively set a date for May 2, but Greenberg’s attorneys will reportedly ask for a delay while appeals related to the case are worked out.

Mr. Greenberg and Howard I. Smith, former AIG chief financial officer, still face allegations related to a $500 million finite reinsurance transaction with Gen Re in 2001 meant to boost AIG’s reserves. The allegations are what are left from former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s investigation of the insurer.

Last October Judge Ramos ruled Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Smith were liable for damages on a reinsurance contract that allegedly helped the insurer hide $200 million in losses from an auto warranty insurance program. Mr. Greenberg, who left AIG in 2005, has denied any wrongdoing.

Mr. Greenberg, now the head of C.V. Starr & Co., is appealing the ruling.

Four former insurance executives with Gen Re—including former CEO Ronald Ferguson—and an AIG reinsurance executive were found guilty by a federal jury early in 2008 of charges stemming from the alleged bogus finite reinsurance deal. The convictions are under appeal.

At a December charity event in New York, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani bashed Mr. Spitzer and called what is being done to Mr. Greenberg, “one of the great outrages in American legal history.”