Greenberg, Maurice aig

<p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">See H Greenberg, Greenberg Traurig (abramoff, BBR)

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<p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">pension peterson CTT<p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">related to hank how?

=Themis:  SEPTEMBEROn September 10, U.S. Chamber Watch files charges with the IRS that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “violated tax codes by laundering millions of dollars meant for charitable work from a group with ties to the insurance giant AIG.”September 10, 2010Chamber of Commerce Accused of Tax FraudBy ERIC LICHTBLAWASHINGTON — With a war chest rivaling that of the Republican Party itself, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has emerged in the last year as perhaps the Obama administration’s most-well-financed rival on signature policy debates like health care and financial regulation.Critics on the left have long complained about the chamber’s outsize influence. But now they are taking on the business association directly, charging in a complaint filed Friday with the Internal Revenue Service that it violated tax codes by laundering millions of dollars meant for charitable work from a group with ties to the insurance giant A.I.G.The complaint was brought by a group called U.S. Chamber Watch, which was created four months ago — with the strong financial backing of labor unions — to scrutinize the Chamber of Commerce’s growing influence and provide a counterbalance.But chamber officials said they had complied with all tax laws and dismissed the complaint as a political ploy.A chamber spokeswoman, Tita Freeman, said its opponents “are desperately looking for opportunities to undermine the chamber’s efforts to promote free markets and economic growth.”The I.R.S. refused to comment on the complaint, citing the confidentiality of taxpayer records.I.R.S. regulators have often been wary of wading into political grievances, particularly after evidence emerged during the Watergate scandal that the Nixon White House had sought to use the agency for political purposes.But in recent years the agency has occasionally gotten involved in politically tinged controversies. In one high-profile case in 2004, Republican complaints led it to open an investigation into the N.A.A.C.P.’s tax-exempt status after the group’s leader criticized President George W. Bush in a speech. The I.R.S. concluded two years later that the remarks did not violate the group’s nonprofit restrictions on political activity.At issue in the complaint against the Chamber of Commerce is whether the group mixed funds for charitable and noncharitable political purposes in violation of tax codes.The chamber, often using expensive mass-market radio and TV spots, has weighed in on many major public policy debates in recent months, including the Obama administration’s health care policy, business regulations, campaign finance laws and Internet rules, as well as job creation and the threat of tax hikes. On many issues, it has pushed for less government regulation in favor of free-market incentives.Now the chamber’s political arm is turning to the November elections, and it expects to spend $50 million or more to push pro-business candidates, usually Republicans. As part of a wave of new commercials broadcast this week, the chamber’s California affiliate attacked Senator Barbara Boxer — a Democrat running for re-election against Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard — and accused Ms. Boxer of “destroying jobs” by voting against business.Cyrus Mehri, a Washington lawyer who brought the I.R.S. complaint on behalf of U.S. Chamber Watch, said in an interview that the chamber’s current political activities were, in effect, being underwritten with money intended for charitable work.The complaint focuses on loans and grants totaling about $18 million that were made beginning in 2003 to a nonprofit affiliate, the National Chamber Foundation, by theStarr Foundation, a charity started by the founder of A.I.G. and now led by Maurice R. Greenberg, the insurer’s former chairman.Lawyers for Chamber Watch said their research, based largely on public tax filings, found that none of the principal on some $12 million in loans had been paid back and that the money appeared to have been given to the chamber’s foundation for unrestricted use.The lawyers said that the money, in violation of nonprofit restrictions, was ultimately funneled to the chamber itself and used to finance broader political causes, including support for legal tort reform to shield companies like A.I.G. from liability. Mr. Greenberg himself had worked to promote restrictions on lawsuits, the complaint notes.“You have millions of dollars improperly going to the chamber,” said Mr. Mehri, who drafted the complaint with Gail M. Harmon, a Washington lawyer specializing in tax law. “This is not a technical violation.”But Stan Harrell, chief financial officer for the Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview Friday that the chamber’s lawyers and its accountants at Ernst & Younghad reviewed the Starr Foundation funding and found that it complied with all relevant tax law.<p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ex-A.I.G. Chief Is Back, Luring Talent From Rescued Firm
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSHOCT. 26, 2009
Maurice R. Greenberg, who built the American International Group into an insurance behemoth with an impenetrable maze of on- and offshore companies, is at it again.
Even as he has been lambasting the government for its handling of A.I.G. after its near collapse, Mr. Greenberg has been quietly building up a family of insurance companies that could compete with A.I.G. To fill the ranks of his venture, C.V. Starr & Company, he has been hiring some people he once employed.
Now, Mr. Greenberg may have received some unintended assistance from the United States Treasury. Just last week, the Treasury severely limited pay at A.I.G. and other companies that were bailed out by taxpayers. That may hasten the exodus of A.I.G.’s talent, sending more refugees into Mr. Greenberg’s arms, since C. V. Starr is free to pay whatever it wants.
“Basically, he’s just starting ‘A.I.G. Two’ and raiding people out of ‘A.I.G. One,’ ” said Douglas A. Love, an insurance executive who has also hired A.I.G. talent for his company, Investors Guaranty Fund of Pembroke, Bermuda.While America generally loves stories of entrepreneurs making a comeback, Mr. Greenberg’s success may be at the expense of taxpayers. People who work in the industry say that if he is already luring A.I.G.’s people, he may soon be siphoning off its business and, therefore, its means to repay its debt to the government.
“To me, it’s just going to be a matter of time before the valuation of what he’s building is greater than the valuation of A.I.G.,” said Andrew J. Barile, an insurance consultant in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
A.I.G., meanwhile, is struggling to regain its footing. The recipient of the biggest taxpayer bailout in history, it has been ordered by the government to restructure, unwind its complex derivatives and pay back the taxpayers.
At 84, Mr. Greenberg remains larger than life. He spent nearly four decades forging A.I.G. out of private companies, devising its Rubik’s Cube structure and building it into the world’s largest insurance group, with a $1 trillion balance sheet. He lost most of his fortune when the company nearly collapsed last year.
And now, he appears to be starting over.
He was ousted from A.I.G. in an accounting scandal in 2005, and has insisted that he was not responsible for the problems that almost brought down A.I.G. last year — extremely risky trading in derivatives by its financial products unit. At the moment, C. V. Starr does not have a financial products unit, a spokesman for Mr. Greenberg said.
After he was pushed out, Mr. Greenberg fought bitterly with A.I.G. over how to untangle assets that they both laid claim to. Over the summer, he won, earning the rights to $4.3 billion in A.I.G. stock that he had removed from an unusual offshore retirement plan. The company had argued that he had improperly cashed out the stock and used the money to finance new business ventures that were competing with his former company.
PhotoMaurice R. Greenberg, the former head of A.I.G., on his way to court in Manhattan last June. Credit Seth Wenig/Associated PressWith his battles with A.I.G. now largely resolved, Mr. Greenberg is free to use that money as the seed for his latest ventures. Just this month, C. V. Starr leased 141,000 square feet of space — three stories — on Park Avenue in Manhattan, in one of Lehman Brothers’ old headquarters. Previously, he had expressed an interest in buying one of A.I.G.’s prizes, a sprawling global insurance group, but only if he could buy the whole thing. A.I.G. is trying to keep a stake.
Mr. Greenberg declined to comment. But his lawyer, Lee Wolosky, said he was not trying to undercut his former company. “Mr. Greenberg built A.I.G. and wants to see it succeed,” Mr. Wolosky said. He added that since the bailout Mr. Greenberg had been trying to offer consistent advice, both in public and private settings, “about the best course to restore A.I.G. for the benefit of all its stakeholders.” After all, Mr. Greenberg remains A.I.G.’s largest shareholder aside from the government.
As to whether Mr. Greenberg was poaching his former employees, Mr. Wolosky said, “C. V. Starr does employ a number of former A.I.G. personnel, but far fewer than the global insurance companies that are A.I.G.’s direct competitors.” He declined to provide a specific number.
A.I.G. declined to comment.
Treasury officials said their special master for pay, Kenneth R. Feinberg, was aware that if he set pay standards that were too stringent, he could further harm A.I.G. by driving away its executives. “We’re acutely aware of this possibility,” said Andrew Williams, a department spokesman. “That’s why Ken Feinberg spent hours at A.I.G. trying to understand that specific dynamic and strike the right balance.”
Unlike A.I.G., C. V. Starr is privately held, so there is no stock to entice investors, and no disclosure of financial information. Little is known about its business plan, although it has been announcing ventures to insure things as diverse as wayward corporate directors and construction accidents on the bridges and roads being built under the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus program.
The firm seems to be focusing on the specialized lines of business insurance that once made A.I.G. stand out. The government had hoped to leave those businesses at A.I.G. intact after selling off most of its other operations, like life insurance and household finance.
C. V. Starr is also taking on the same form as A.I.G. — an intricate group of companies, each with its own line of business.
For now, most of those companies do not sell their own insurance, but operate as general agencies, representing insurers from rival groups on products that C. V. Starr does not yet sell.
That way, if C. V. Starr does not yet profit from the underwriting of a line of insurance, it can still receive commission income by selling it. “That’s the beauty of how he structures the company,” Mr. Barile said. “Everything is in such silos that every time you make a transaction, the outside world thinks you’re competing, but you aren’t.”
In March, the Starr Indemnity & Liability Company named Charles H. Dangelo its president and chief executive, after bringing him from A.I.G. Global Risk Management.
A few months later, Starr Indemnity hired another executive from A.I.G., Jim Vendetti, making him its senior vice president and chief underwriting officer. The company also hired a former A.I.G. crisis manager, Alex Pittignano, to build up its businesses of insuring against specialized risks like environmental disasters.
Mr. Greenberg has found ways to exploit A.I.G. without directly hiring former employees. Starr has formed a joint venture with Ironshore, led by the former chief executive of an A.I.G. company called Lexington Insurance. Each of Ironshore’s five new businesses is headed by still more A.I.G. alumni. The joint venture, called Iron-Starr Excess Agency Ltd., is headed by Geoff Smith, an executive hired away from A.I.G. in December. It provides insurance to businesses after they have exhausted their primary insurance.<p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">==

Chapter 7 of American War Machine is perhaps the most interesting, as it describes the global drug connection and its ties to a "shadow CIA," which has functioned as a tool for international overworld interests including those referred to as the Safari Club. OPC officer Paul Helliwell figures prominently in this chapter, in part for his role in creating the CIA-related Castle Bank, which laundered money and helped finance off-the-books operations, and for his ties to organized crime. Castle Bank's connections to the overworld are discussed as are its links to agent C.V. Starr, whose insurance empire evolved into the company we know as AIG. This chapter also introduces Adnan Khashoggi, who appears throughout the deep history of US foreign policy and played a major role in the activities of Castle Bank's successor, the Bank of Credit and Commercial International (BCCI).

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Maurice Raymond "Hank" Greenberg (born May 4, 1925) is an American <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_executive" title="Business executive" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">business executive</a> and former chairman and CEO of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_International_Group" title="American International Group" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">American International Group</a> (AIG), which was the world's 18th largest public company and its largest insurance and financial services corporation.

He is currently chairman and CEO of C.V. Starr & Co., Inc. (C.V. Starr), a diversified financial services firm that is named for the founder of AIG, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vander_Starr" title="Cornelius Vander Starr" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">Cornelius Vander Starr</a>. He joined C.V. Starr as vice president in 1960 and was given the additional responsibilities of president of American Home Assurance Company in 1962. He was elected director of C.V. Starr in 1965, chairman and chief executive officer in 1968 and continues in that role. Greenberg is the chairman of the board of directors and managing director of Starr International Company Inc., and chairman and chief executive officer of Starr International USA, Inc. (Starr International USA). C.V. Starr and Starr International USA are collectively known as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Starr_Companies&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Starr Companies (page does not exist)" style="background: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(165, 88, 88);">Starr Companies</a>.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">citation needed</a>]

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Greenberg#Early_life" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">1 Early life</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Greenberg#Other_public_positions" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">3 Other public positions</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Greenberg#Incident_with_Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">4 Incident with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Greenberg#Legal_issues" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">5 Legal issues</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Greenberg#Biography" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">6 Biography</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Greenberg#Further_reading" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7 Further reading</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Greenberg#Awards_And_Nominations" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">8 Awards And Nominations</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Greenberg#References" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">9 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Greenberg#Further_reading_2" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">10 Further reading</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-11" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Greenberg#External_links" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">11 External links</a></li>

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