AIG Bonuses 'Staggering' in Size, Seven Execs Received Over $4 Million Each

March 17, 2009— -- The Financial Products Subsidiary may be largely to blame for the near collapse of insurance giant AIG last year, but that did not stop seven executives at that department from taking home bonuses of over $4 million each, with the top bonus recipient earning more than $6.4 million, according to numbers released today by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in a letter to the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

"Already my Office has determined that some of these bonuses were staggering in size," wrote Cuomo after he subpoenaed AIG Monday demanding the names and job descriptions of those that shared a $165 million bonus pool despite the firm's dismal performance and its acceptance of over $170 billion in bailout funds so far.

Click here to read Cuomo's letter on AIG bonuses.

"Again, these payments were all made to individuals in the subsidiary whose performance led to crushing losses and the near failure of AIG," wrote Cuomo. "Thus, last week, AIG made more than 73 millionaires in the unit which lost so much money that it brought the firm to its knees, forcing a taxpayer bailout."

He provided the numbers collected thus far by his office.

The top seven bonus recipients received more than $4 million each;

The top ten bonus recipients received a combined $42 million;

22 individuals received bonuses of $2 million or more, and combined they received more than $72 million;

73 individuals received bonuses of $1 million or more; and

Eleven of the individuals who received "retention" bonuses of $1 million or more are no longer working at AIG, including one who received $4.6 million.

The CEO of AIG, Edward Liddy, has said the company's "hands are tied" when it came to awarding the bonuses because contractual obligations made it legally necessary to award them. But Cuomo insists that the company could have worked around those obligations.

"My Office has reviewed the legal opinion that AIG obtained from its own counsel, and it is not at all clear that these lawyers even considered the argument that is it only by the grace of American taxpayers that members of Financial Products even have jobs, let alone a pool of retention bonus money," wrote Cuomo urging Frank to take up the issue at Wednesday's hearing on Capitol Hill.

Cuomo also argues that AIG could have negotiated with its employees since their salaries were renegotiated for 2009 in exchange for receiving their retention bonuses.

"The fact that AIG engaged in this negotiation flies in the face of AIG's assertion that it had no choice but to make these lavish multi-million dollar bonus payments," said Cuomo. "It appears that AIG had far more leverage than they now claim."