American International Group

American International Group Inc. executives’ refusal to repay bonuses as previously promised is “outrageous,” and President Barack Obama’s compensation overseer should be given the power to get the money back, Senator Charles Schumer said.
“This is outrageous,” Schumer said in an interview to be aired on “Political Capital with Al Hunt” this weekend. “They were supposed to return them. They said they would return them. Now many of them are not with the company.”
Schumer, a New York Democrat, said he’d like Kenneth Feinberg, Obama’s special master on executive pay, to try to recover the money and he’d give him legislative or regulatory authority if it doesn’t already exist.
“He would be very much disposed to getting the money back,” Schumer said.
AIG, which received a $182.3 billion U.S. government bailout, ignited a backlash after giving about $165 million in March to employees of its AIG Financial Products unit, which has been blamed for pushing the company to the brink of collapse.
Employees of the division pledged to return $45 million in bonus payments after New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo threatened to release their names to the public. As of October, the employees had returned only $19 million, according to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the government bailouts.
Neither Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly nor AIG spokesman Mark Herr would comment.
Pay Cuts Ordered
Feinberg was appointed by Obama to monitor compensation of the highest-paid executives at companies that received extraordinary help from U.S. taxpayers, including AIG. Feinberg has ordered pay cuts averaging 50 percent for the top 25 executives, and set a $500,000 cash salary limit for the next 75 workers at AIG and other companies.
In the wake of the bonus revelations, some Senate Democrats proposed imposing a 70 percent tax on all companies getting U.S. bailout money.
Last year, lawmakers approved a $700 billion bailout of U.S. banks, insurance companies and automakers after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. led to a freeze in credit markets and brought several financial firms to the brink of collapse. AIG, which wrote billions in credit default swaps in Lehman, was rescued by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury.