American International Group Inc

A proposed settlement in an investor suit against American International Group Inc. recommends that individual defendants be limited to ousted Chief Executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and two other former AIG executives. Claims would be dropped against 10 outside directors under the settlement, presented this week to a Delaware judge by lawyers for the lead plaintiffs and AIG board representatives.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner took a political beating Wednesday for his role in the controversial bailout of American International Group Inc., but he didn't waver in defending the actions he and other government officials took to rescue the insurance giant. A feisty Geithner described the moves as distasteful but necessary to prevent a financial catastrophe in fall 2008, when he was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He was backed up on that point by former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, who also took heat for the bailout.

The controversy over American International Group Inc.'s $182.5-billion bailout is intensifying with a government watchdog launching an investigation into potential misconduct in the disclosure of the rescue's details and a House committee preparing to grill the current and former Treasury secretaries about them today. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has been under fire for his role in the bailout of the giant insurer, which he helped engineer as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the fall of 2008.

Los Angeles-based annuity marketer SunAmerica on Thursday agreed to a $16.5-billion buyout by insurance powerhouse American International Group, a deal that some analysts say could achieve something accomplished by surprisingly few mergers: the uniting of two companies whose businesses actually complement each other. Many companies promise such "synergies" to justify the hefty price tags of their deals.

American International Group Inc. offered $690 million in cash for the shares of auto insurer 21st Century Insurance Group it doesn't already own. AIG proposed $19.75 a share, a 19% premium over Woodland Hills-based 21st Century's closing price, the New York-based company said. AIG already owns 61.9% of the outstanding shares.

Los Angeles-based SunAmerica Inc., a financial services company specializing in retirement savings, said Jay Wintrob has been elected chief operating officer. Wintrob, 41, also will remain vice chairman of SunAmerica, a position he has held since 1995. Most recently, Wintrob played a key role in SunAmerica's pending merger with New York-based American International Group Inc. The merger was approved last week by shareholders of both firms.

When insurance giant American International Group Inc. imploded last fall, the firm's problems were quickly blamed not on its core insurance business but on an obscure operation that traded exotic mortgage securities. But as the economic crisis deepens, it has become clear that AIG's problems extend across most of its business lines, including its massive life insurance and retirement services operations, which reported a staggering $18-billion quarterly loss this month.

A judge for the second time dismissed a lawsuit filed by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. seeking more than $100 million in damages related to corporate-owned life insurance policies. Wal-Mart sued American International Group Inc.'s AIG Life Insurance unit and Hartford Financial Services Group Inc.'s Hartford Life Insurance Co. in Delaware Chancery Court in 2002, blaming underwriters for the loss of tax deductions for $1.3 billion in policies Wal-Mart bought from 1993 to 1995.

American International Group Inc. may lose its Florida license over transactions that cut its net worth by $2.7 billion. AIG on May 1 said improper transactions that boosted its assets might have "involved misrepresentations" to management, regulators and auditors. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation has ordered AIG to detail the extent of the misrepresentations and "remove any parties" responsible for them. New York Atty. Gen.

U.S. securities regulators originally treated the New York Federal Reserve's bid to keep secret many of the details of the American International Group bailout like a request to protect matters of national security, according to e-mails obtained by Reuters. The request to keep the details secret were made by the New York Federal Reserve -- a regulator that helped orchestrate the bailout -- and by the giant insurer itself, according to the e-mails. The e-mails from early last year reveal that officials at the New York Fed were comfortable with AIG submitting a crucial bailout-related document to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission only after getting assurances from the regulatory agency that "special security procedures" would be used to handle the document.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, apparently seeking to mollify critics as he awaits Senate confirmation on his reappointment, said Tuesday that he welcomed a government audit of the central bank's role in the intensely unpopular bailout of American International Group Inc. In a letter to the head of the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, Bernanke offered to "make available to the GAO all records and personnel...

A New York aviation services company has offered to buy International Lease Finance Corp. in Century City for more than $12 billion in a deal that would sever the aircraft leasing firm's ties to the nation's biggest government bailout. But ILFC parent company American International Group Inc., the insurance giant that received $182.5 billion in bailout money from the federal government, has refused to respond to or even comment on the offer. "We have support all over the country, but for some reason we can't get a response from AIG," said Robert Rose, president of Allied Aviation Services Inc., one of the nation's largest providers of fuel for commercial aircraft.

Since its near-collapse, American International Group Inc. has been selling all kinds of assets -- but it apparently doesn't want to part with its Century City-based aircraft leasing company. On Monday, the troubled insurance giant disclosed that it lent the unit, International Lease Finance Corp., $2 billion to pay off debt that was due last week. It marked the second time that AIG pumped federal bailout money into ILFC, signaling that AIG and the federal government want to keep the unit -- at least in the short term.

If you've flown on a commercial airliner over the last two decades, there's a good chance you were in a plane leased from Steven Udvar-Hazy. The Hungarian refugee, who came to America as a child in 1958 with little more than a love for aviation, is now one of the richest men in Los Angeles. He amassed his estimated $2.2-billion fortune by building up a global aircraft-leasing empire and selling it in 1990 to insurance giant American International Group Inc. But now Udvar-Hazy, who was allowed to keep running the business under AIG, wants part or all of the company back.

A Treasury Department challenge to the authority of government bailout watchdog Neil M. Barofsky came just as he had begun a sensitive investigation of the department's role in approving bonuses to executives of insurance giant AIG, sources said Thursday. Department lawyers had sent a message to Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, suggesting that lawyer-client privilege could restrict some of his inquiries.

Lawmakers on Thursday sharply criticized a federal program that relies on private insurance companies to provide medical care and benefits to civilians injured while working in support of the U.S. military effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. Members of a House subcommittee charged that the insurance firms had exploited the taxpayer-supported program to reap enormous profits while shortchanging workers. "We've got to straighten out this mess and we're going to do that," said Rep. Elijah E.

A senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wants his panel to investigate whether insurance giant American International Group Inc. and other providers have unnecessarily denied and delayed costly medical treatment for civilian contractors injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) also called for an investigation into the Labor Department's role in overseeing the federally financed insurance system for civilians working overseas.