Legal News

AIG Roundup: A Lawyer Hits it Big; The Firm Keeps On Fighting the IRS

By Ashby Jones

Just a few quick AIG-related items to hit this morning, both of which — we’re sure — will keep the beleaguered insurer in readers’, uh, good graces.

Meet Douglas Poling: According to a story in Friday’s WSJ, it was an in-house lawyer (a lawyer!) at AIG who received the highest of the so-called retention bonuses. According to the story, Poling received more than $6.4 million before offering to return the money amid the political and public firestorm.

Poling oversaw legal work on the contracts that sat at the core of the AIG’s financial products business — such as customized insurance-like swaps and other derivative contracts that generated a steady stream of fees. He served as general counsel and chief administrative officer of the unit. His title is now listed as executive vice president overseeing “energy and infrastructure investments.”

In May 2007, as AIG’s swaps problems began developing, Poling expressed confidence about the business approach of AIG’s financial unit toward one of its products. “We are very careful and disciplined and rigorous in the way in which we structure and document these transactions,” Poling said, according to a transcript of the investor presentation.

According to a story in Thursday’s New York Times, Poling’s house in Fairfield, Conn., was recently being minded by a private-security firm.

The House Says Yes to Tax: The House yesterday overwhelmingly passed a 90% surtax on bonuses granted to employees who earn more than $250,000 at companies that have received at least $5 billion from the government’s financial rescue program. The bonus tax, if approved by the Senate and signed into law, would be retroactive to Dec. 31, 2008. Click here for the Journal story; here for a recent LB post on whether such a law would pass constitutional muster.

AIG Keeps Fighting the Tax Man: Meanwhile, the NYT has a story Friday on the company’s fight to win back some $306 million from the IRS.

The company sued the government last month in a bid to force it to return the payments, which stemmed in large part from its use of aggressive tax deals.

The strangeness of such a suit is certainly not lost on the Times, which mentions that the company is effectively suing its majority owner, the government, and paying for the prosecution of the lawsuit with government money.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 20, 2009 (boomark / email).