Three days before he resigned as head of American International Group Inc (AIG), Maurice "Hank" Greenberg gave his wife 41.4 million of his shares in the insurance company, according to a regulatory filing.
The disclosure came on Tuesday, the same day Greenberg declined to answer questions posed by government investigators probing transactions at AIG.
AIG's board forced Greenberg, 79, to relinquish his posts as president and CEO on March 14, and he retired as the company's chairman two weeks later.
Greenberg transferred the shares to his wife, Corinne Greenberg, on March 11, according to his filing on Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The shares are worth US$2.2 billion, based on AIG's current stock price.
Greenberg directly held 1.95 million shares after the transfer. In the filing, Greenberg also disclaimed ownership "and any pecuniary interest" in another 23.65 million AIG shares he held through C.V. Starr & Co Inc, which controls AIG managers' compensation.
Howard Opinsky, a spokesman for Greenberg's legal team, declined to comment on the filing, as did AIG spokesman Chris Winans.
At Tuesday's deposition, Greenberg invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in response to all questions during the 45 minute session, according to a person who attended the meeting but asked not to be identified by name.
"I'm told it was quiet, cordial and professional," Opinsky said after the meeting.
Greenberg, who arrived and exited the building via an underground tunnel, made no comments after the meeting. His lawyer had indicated on Monday that his client likely would refuse to answer questions because he had not had sufficient time to prepare.
Greenberg's substantial stock gift to his wife is sure to spark investigators' interest, because it appears to be an effort to shield assets, said Thomas Ajamie, a securities lawyer in Houston.
"All the alarms are going off, and red flags are waving, when he makes such a huge transfer at the exact same time that he's under civil lawsuit scrutiny and criminal scrutiny," Ajamie said. "This large of a transfer, even in isolation, would garner regulatory scrutiny, but in the context of the criminal and civil issues, the warning bells are waking up people from here to China."
Investigators who attended the Tuesday session with Greenberg in New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office in lower Manhattan included members of Spitzer's staff, representatives from the Securities and Exchange Commission and lawyers from the New York state insurance department.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS