January 25,2010

Grassley asks more questions about multi-million severance package for AIG exec, plus a second AIG exec

WASHINGTON --- Senator Chuck Grassley is asking a second set of questions about the circumstances surrounding an AIG executive who received a multi-million severance package at the end of last year and reports of a second executive who may have received a million-dollar severance payment at year’s end following an apparent resignation, rather than termination.

Grassley is seeking an accounting from the Special Master for Compensation for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. A significant amount of the government’s bailout effort, including through the TARP program, has gone to AIG, and the federal government’s Special Master for Compensation in responsible for monitoring compensation for program participants.

Grassley said executive bonuses are “an affront to taxpayers who funded a bailout effort that was supposed to prevent a collapse of the financial system, rather than to enrich company executives.”

The senator’s questions this month for the Special Master for Compensation follow efforts over the last year to hold government officials accountable for how the bailout has been managed. More than a year ago, Grassley worked to create a Special Inspector General for TARP. He co-sponsored legislation to strengthen the ability of the Special Inspector General to conduct oversight after the original mission of TARP was changed. Grassley also battled the White House in 2009, after it tried to subject the requests of the Special Inspector General to the red tape of the Paperwork Reduction Act.

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