Could Be Worse: AIG Double Bonus Jeopardy

March 17, 2009— -- When AIG chief executive officer Edward M. Liddy argued that legal obligations made it nearly impossible for the bailed-out firm not to pay $165 million in retention bonuses, critics found it hard to imagine a worse scenario for taxpayers whose money has already been used to keep the company afloat.

But AIG and legal experts agree that, as far as payouts to employees go, it could indeed be worse -- twice as bad, to be exact.

If the crumbling insurance giant didn't make good on its retention packages, employees could sue the firm for at least $330 million -- double the total size of the bonuses.

And, some say, a successful lawsuit could ultimately mean a higher tab for taxpayers, who are already footing the bill for $162.5 billion in rescue loans and investments into AIG from the federal government.

"If our tax dollars are being used to fund these payouts and the payouts end up being double, then we're paying double," said Joshua Hawks-Ladds, the vice chair of the Connecticut Bar Association labor and employment section executive committee.

The potential for a costly lawsuit stems in part from state law in Connecticut, where AIG's now-infamous financial products division -- the arm of the company that employs the 400-some employees awarded the $165 million bonuses -- is based.

In a document submitted by AIG to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the company argues that were it to renege on contractual agreements to make retention payments -- which were set in early 2008, before the government enacted compensation limits under its Troubled Asset Relief Plan -- the firm could be liable for "double damages and attorneys' fees" under the Connecticut Wage Act.

There "are legal, binding obligations of AIG, and there are serious legal, as well as business, consequences for not paying," Liddy wrote in a recent letter to Geithner.

Lawyers who spoke to ABCNews.com said AIG's concerns are legitimate.

"If we're talking about the possibility of violating the Connecticut or other states' wage act, then there is a real risk that one needs to be concerned about. ... Some of these states are fairly punitive," said Donald P. Carleen, of the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. "For AIG to do what the public seems to want them to do and certainly what Congress would like them to do could in theory expose them to liability."