The trial to consider claims by Maurice “Hank” Greenberg’s against the U.S. government in AIG’s 2008 bailout begins today as David Boies, Greenberg’s litigator, will question the architects of the bailout, including Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner, Bloomberg News reported today. According to Greenberg’s claims, the $182 billion taxpayer bailout that saved American International Group Inc. and perhaps all of Wall Street during the 2008 financial collapse was a government rip-off. Greenberg’s Starr International Co., AIG’s largest shareholder when the financial crisis struck, sued the government, calling its assumption of 80 percent of the insurer’s stock an unconstitutional “taking” of property that requires at least $25 billion in compensation. The complaint by Starr International, Greenberg’s Swiss-based investment company, doesn’t question the necessity of a rescue that began under Republican President George W. Bush and continued under Democrat Barack Obama. Rather, Starr claims AIG was singled out for punitive treatment that violated shareholders’ constitutional rights to due process and just compensation for their property.
