AIG London staff dig in heels over bonus payments despite US threats

March 26, 2009 - Christine Seib in New York - Times of London http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5977381.ece

Most of the London-based recipients of AIG’s $165 million bonus payout have decided not to return their windfalls despite pleas and threats from US authorities.

Gerald Pasciucco, head of AIG Financial Products (AIGFP), told a staff meeting for UK and Paris employees on Monday that it was up to them whether they returned their bonuses as requested by Edward Liddy, AIG’s government-appointed chairman and chief executive.

But one staff member told Reuters: “The vast majority of people in London have made the decision that the request is pretty offensive . . . It effectively constitutes blackmail whether it is criminal or not. There is no moral reason to give it back.”

A compliance officer at Banque AIG, an associated company, suggested in e-mails to staff that the repayment demands, which were also made by Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney-general, and various lawmakers, were illegal under UK law.

AIG needed $173 billion in US taxpayers’ cash to stay afloat but still insisted on paying $165 million in bonuses this month to 418 workers at AIGFP, which caused the company’s most catastrophic losses. About $85 million of the bonus pool was paid to workers outside the US.

American voters and lawmakers are furious at the payments. Even Mr Liddy described some of the windfalls as “distasteful”.

Mr Cuomo, who is investigating whether the payments broke any New York laws, said on Monday that nine of the ten recipients of the largest bonuses, and 15 of the top 20, had agreed to return their bonuses.

His aides confirmed that many of those who declined to hand back their bonuses were based in London. AIGFP’s Mayfair office conducted some of the most toxic business undertaken by the disgraced insurer.

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Seems to me these are financial terrorists.

The Department of Significant Macroeconomically Maladaptive Activities.

Now we know what type of people they are. They are a bunch of crooks.

nt

and vote in our own Board. And then ask for the resignations on everyone above, say, first level management.

And I read the whiny letter from the "non guilty" exec VP... and that doesn't wash. If we hadn't stepped in with
$175 BILLION in taxpayer money, the entire company would have bit the big one. I've been part of more than one company
that made stupid mistakes and either had to leave (they kept asking me to lay off more people and after two rounds I simply
gave them one name) or my last paycheck bounced. Companies fail. Good people who had nothing to do with why the company
failed get hurt... Boo-fuckin-hoo.

I sure didn't make the kind of money these assholes made. If working for $1 and losing the bonus money really hurts them, then
they should be in charge of a FINANCIAL INSTITUTION... since they can't, apparently, save money and live within their means
on millions per year.

nm

What assets did we get for that bailout? What hard assets does AIG own? My understanding is that AIG has used our bailout money
to pay off the bets made by other financial institutions. They were the bookies for an elaborate casino game, and they lost. We are
covering the bets (CDS) made. What are we getting out of that? Other than keeping their betting partners from going broke?

Let them spend the bonuses from a torture dungeon in a third country!

I wonder how he knows what the "vast majority" of people think about this. This claim is pretty self serving.