AIG boss calls for refund
Published:Wednesday | March 18, 2009 | 5:47 PM
The boss of US insurer AIG has called the bonuses paid to executives distasteful and said he asked some recipients to return at least half the funds.
But Edward Liddy is claiming that the Federal Reserve knew from November of the US$165 million bonus payments to executives that have caused such a furore in the US.
He told a Congressional hearing today that mistakes were made at AIG on a scale that few could have imagined possible.
Mr Liddy says he asked AIG executives receiving a bonus of more than $100,000 to pay at least half of it back.
The insurer has taken about $170 billion in aid from the US government, which is why the bonus payments have caused such outrage in the US.
US lawmakers are considering several different responses to the controversy and the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee today approved legislation that seeks to recover the AIG bonuses.
US President Barack Obama has also reiterated his anger at the bonus payments referring to them as an inappropriate use of taxpayer money.