AIG Comes Out Swinging in $4.3B Lawsuit vs. Ex-CEO

AIG 's longtime CEO sold crucial assets in 2005 out of spite, the company's lawyers charged as they opened their civil suit against the ousted exec today in New York. “Hank Greenberg was mad. He was angry,” said a lawyer for the bailed-out mega-insurer. Greenberg was weeks away from being ousted as CEO when he authorized the sale of shares from a trust fund meant to provide for AIG execs.

Greenberg’s lawyers maintain that the stock was owned by a related but separate company, Starr International, that Greenberg controlled. AIG says Starr and the insurance company agreed decades earlier manage their affairs together. AIG estimates the value of Greenberg’s 2005 selloff at $4.3 billion and is suing to get that money back. (More Hank Greenberg stories.)