‘Outrageous’: AIG to pay $100m in bonuses to London-based unit that pushed insurer to brink of collapse

February 5, 2010 by Infowars Ireland

Fury: But White House pay tsar Kenneth Feinberg said the payments are legal

www.dailymail.co.uk

Bailed-out insurance giant AIG last night risked another wave of public disgust at the financial industry by awarding ‘outrageous’ bonuses worth more than £62million to executives in London and the U.S.

The payouts were sent out to staff in the same department – the financial products division – that was blamed for almost driving one of the world’s largest firms out of business during the credit crunch in 2008.

American taxpayers funded a £113billion bail out of AIG after the company was deemed ‘too big to fail’.

As President Barack Obama tries to cut his country’s £1trillion budget deficit, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the award of the bonuses represented an ‘outrageous failure of policy’.

Government attempts to block the award of the bonuses failed because the money was promised under contracts signed before the financial meltdown.

Mr Geithner was facing calls to resign last night despite his claims that a new fee on banks proposed in the President’s budget could recoup the payments.

‘AIG has taxpayers over a barrel. The Obama administration has been outmanoeuvred,’ claimed Senator Charles Grassley.

The bonuses were paid a month early as part of a deal with the U.S. Treasury in which most employees still working in the financial products division agreed to take up to 20 per cent less than they were owed. Read more…