Congress wants AIG bonuses back; AIG head rebukes suicide remark

Mar 18, 2009, 16:59 GMT

Washington - The US Congress Wednesday tapped into growing public ire over bailed-out insurance giant AIG's payment of bonuses as legislators explored ways to reclaim 165 million dollars from the company and its employees.

'There's a tidal wave of rage ... across America,' said Representative Gary Ackerman at a hearing of the House Financial Services subcommittee.

US President Barack Obama, who on Monday expressed anger and outrage over the situation, has ordered Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to figure out how to block future bonus payments and recover those that were paid on Friday.

American International Group (AIG) head Edward Liddy was to face the music later in the day before legislators who have been inundated with angry messages from constituents over his company's payment of bonuses to the traders who sold financial instruments that helped trigger the global credit crisis.

AIG is being kept afloat by an estimated 200 billion dollars of government money intended to help unblock the freeze in credit markets.

Liddy admitted in prepared testimony that 'the patience of America's taxpayers is wearing thin.' But he also complained in a separate document about the wave of criticism that included a suggestion by one lawmaker that AIG executives take their own lives.

A statement by a United States senator that AIG employees should consider suicide is unfathomable, especially for one of our nations leaders,' Liddy said in a letter to employees, Bloomberg financial news service reported.

He was referring to a remark by Republican Senator Charles Grassley to an Iowa radio station that AIG executives should adopt the Japanese method of apology and 'come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I'm sorry. And then either do one of two things, resign or go commit suicide.'

Grassley has since backed off, saying he was only demanding 'contrition.'

The exchange indicated the extent of anger that more than 165 million dollars in bonuses were paid to 418 people at AIG, which is at the core of the global financial meltdown as the firm which insured many of the questionable financial instruments developed by the financial industry over the past decade.

The bonuses included payments of 4 million dollars each to 10 top recipients and 1 million dollars each to 73 other employees.

Pressure grew on Wednesday for AIG to divulge the names of bonus recipients. US Representative Barney Frank, a Democrat and chair of the House Financial Services Committee, said if Liddy did not voluntarily turn over the names, he would form a special panel to subpoena the information.

He suggested that the US government also assert its 80-per-cent ownership role of AIG and bring lawsuits against the bonuses.

'We should be exercising our rights as owners to say these people performed so poorly ... we are justified in rescinding the bonuses.'

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is also pressing an investigation of the bonuses.

AIG claims it is legally obligated to pay the bonuses, which it says are needed to retain top talent and were included in contracts before the bailout. Frank has charged that the bonuses were 'rewarding incompetence.'

In his statement, Liddy says the company was 'acutely aware' of the 'generous amounts of government financial aid' and that the company 'must be good stewards of the public funds.'

Liddy, called in to head the company by the US government after costly rescue operations began in September, says he also finds the bonuses 'distasteful' and admits that AIG made 'mistakes ... on a scale few could have ever imagined possible.'

He said the company strayed from its insurance business into what became 'an internal hedge fund' that then grew overexposed to market risk.