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Matching entries from Houston's Clear Thinkers
Considering the whole man
Over the years, I've written quite a bit (for example, here, here and here) on the questionable nature of the prosecutions of the executives who were involved in the AIG/General Re finite risk transaction that prompted Eliot Spitzer to...
A tuna wins a small lottery prize
As a result of the Buffet Rule, the federal government decided to land a bunch of tuna rather than the barracuda in regard to an AIG-General Re finite risk insurance transaction that was not clearly illegal, much less criminal....
230 years?
So, the Justice Department is seeking a sentence of 230 years for former General Re senior counsel Robert Graham, a 60-year old man who has never been involved in any wrongdoing in his life. Mercifully, the pre-sentencing report recommends...
The DOJ loses another Enron criminal case
As expected, the Fifth Circuit denied the government's appeal yesterday of U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore's decision to vacate the final count of the government's odious five count conviction against former Enron Broadband CFO Kevin Howard. The Fifth Circuit's decision...
Landing the tuna rather than the barracuda
As noted here last month, Berkshire Hathaway chairman and mainstream media folk hero Warren Buffett is a key player and, as these NY Times and W$J articles report, perhaps even a key witness in the upcoming criminal trial of a...
The first salvo in the Bagwell disability claim lawsuit
Connecticut General Insurance Co. -- the lead insurer on the Stros' disability insurance policy on the best player in the history of the Houston Astros Baseball Club, Jeff Bagwell -- has fired the first salvo in the Stros' lawsuit against...
Randy Quaid's Brokeback lawsuit
Former Houstonian Randy Quaid, the fine character actor who is a product of Sidney Berger's outstanding theatre department at the University of Houston, is making news these days in the courtroom -- he is suing the producers of the recent...
Shoe drops on former AIG and General Re execs
Almost lost amidst the publicity over the first day of testimony in the Enron-related Lay-Skilling trial was the news that a Virginia federal grand jury had issued indictments against former General Re Chief Executive Ronald Ferguson, former General Re Chief...
Former General Re CEO receives a Wells notice
Following on earlier plea bargains, former General Reinsurance Corp. CEO Ronald Ferguson received a Wells notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission late last week in regard to the SEC's investigation into various "finite risk" structured finance transactions between General...
Is Berkshire becoming a target?
This NY Times article reports that Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has disclosed that government authorities are probing at least one of the company's insurance subsidiaries other than General Reinsurance Corp. over accounting of "finite risk" reinsurance transactions. Here are the previous...
More Spitzer mischief
When one door for a misguided investigation closes for Aspiring Governor Eliot Spitzer, he just opens another one. Although misdirected, no one can say that Mr. Spitzer is not persistent. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein of the Southern...
The Lord of Regulation's turf wars
As noted in earlier posts here and here, New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer does not take kindly to other governmental agencies infringing on his various crusades to demonize wealthy business interests in his seemingly unending quest to promote his...
Hank fights back
With the criminal investigation of American Insurance Group, Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway unit General Re heating up earlier this week, former AIG chairman and CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg made his first detailed public comments regarding the propaganda campaign that New...
The high price of cooperation
Berkshire Hathaway's decision to roll over and provide government investigators anything they want in connection with the multiple investigations into the transactions between Berkshire General Reinsurance Corp. and American International Group, Inc. is starting to look like a very costly...
Does Hank Greenberg read Clear Thinkers?
This post from last week made the following comment about the "finite risk" insurance transaction that is at the center of Eliot Spitzer's investigation of AIG and Berkshire Hathaway unit General Re, and AIG's former chairman and CEO, Maurice "Hank"...
Criminalizing risk taking
Two columns in today's Wall Street Journal address one of the too little-discussed effects of this post-Enron era's criminalization of business -- that is, the chilling of beneficial risk-taking. In his weekly WSJ ($) column, Alan Murray examines the motives...
General Re continues to serve up sacrificial lambs
As predicted in this earlier post, this NY Times article reports on the guilty plea of Richard Napier -- a senior vice president at General Re in 2000 and 2001 when the questionable transaction with American International Group occurred --...
Former Gen Re exec fingers others
As anticipated in this post from earlier this week, John Houldsworth, a former high-level executive of the Cologne Re Dublin unit of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s General Reinsurance Corp., implicated four other senior General Re executives while pleading guilty on Thursday...
The noose tightens -- General Re exec cops plea
John Houldsworth, an executive at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s General Reinsurance Corp. unit, has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of criminal conspiracy in connection with the company's nontraditional insurance finance transactions with American International Group Inc. Although Mr. Houldsworth...
The Lord sues AIG and Greenberg
New York AG ("Attorney General" or "Aspiring Governor," take your pick) Eliot Spitzer and the New York State Insurance Department filed a civil lawsuit today against American International Group, Inc and its two former top executives -- former CEO Maurice...
First AIG exec cops immunity deal
Joseph H. Umansky, president of AIG Reinsurance Advisors over the past 13 years, became the first senior executive at American International Group Inc. to strike a deal with authorities to offer his testimony in return for immunity from potential charges...
The Oracle's sacrificial lamb?
Berkshire Hathaway used the tried-and-true tactic of a late Friday afternoon news release in an attempt to generate the least amount of notice possible for its most recent quarterly earnings report. However, in doing so, Berkshire raised eyebrows by disclosing...
It's a tough time to be an insurer
Frustrated with the Lord of Regulation getting all the headlines recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced yesterday a wide-ranging inquiry into the insurance industry that could extend into banking and other financial sectors. FBI investigators and insurance regulators from...
Daily negative AIG report
Following on Friday's negative report, American International Group Inc. announced late Sunday that it would restate more than four years of financial statements and reduce its net worth by $2.7 billion, which is about 3.3% of AIG's net worth. Although...
The Lord of Regulation chats with the Oracle of Omaha
Let's review the landscape of regulating business for a moment. Various former executives of disgraced and insolvent Enron Corp. are under indictment for using structured finance transactions that independent lawyers and accountants approved to mislead investors regarding Enron's true financial...
You don't say?
Eliot Spitzer, the New York AG (i.e., "Aspiring Governor") made the Sunday talk show circuit yesterday in regard to his campaign against corporate wrongdoing generally and his ongoing investigation of transactions between AIG and a unit of Berkshire Hathaway (earlier...
Did Buffett rat out AIG?
In an extraordinary development in the unfolding criminal investigation of transactions between American International General, Inc. and Berkshire-Hathaway, Inc., this NY Times article reports that Berkshire chairman Warren Buffett -- in an effort to win leniency for Berkshire in an...
Absolutely Enronesque
In the most stunning in a series of revelations that has rocked the U.S. business community, American International Group Inc. admitted yesterday to numerous and substantial accounting irregularities that could reduce its net worth by over $1.75 billion. Moreover, the...
The Lord of Regulation goes after the Oracle of Omaha
Almost on cue, this Wall Street Journal article($) is reporting that Warren Buffett, the famed investor who is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., will be questioned by regulators next month over his involvement in the transaction between Berkshire's...
But what about this issue?
The NY Times Gretchen Morgenson provides this lucid analysis of the deal that prompted American International Group's board to call upon Maurice "Hank" Greenberg to step down as AIG's CEO after a generation of phenomenal wealth building for AIG shareholders....
AIG sacrifices more to the Lord of Regulation
Following on these earlier posts regarding the increasing threat of criminal indictment that is being place on American International Group executives, AIG canned two of its top executives -- CFO Howard I. Smith and VP Christian M. Milton -- after...
Meanwhile, over at AIG and Berkshire . . .
And while the business and legal worlds focus on the implications of the Ebbers conviction, this NY Times article reports on the uneasiness at Berkshire Hathaway as New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer carves another notch in his anti-business...
Feds bear down on Berkshire
On the heels of Warren Buffett's annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that was silent on such matters, federal and state investigators are focusing on whether a four year old transaction between Berkshire Hathaway's General Reinsurance Corp. and American International...
Warren Buffet's annual letter to shareholders
Uber-investor Warren Buffett's 2004 performance letter to Berkshire Hathaway, Inc's shareholders was published over the weekend. While citing such diverse characters as W.C. Fields and Jesus Christ, Mr. Buffett accepted blame for a drop in Berkshire's 2004 earnings. Here is...
Spitzer takes dead aim at AIG
New York AG (meaning either "attorney general" or "aspiring governor") Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission issued subpoenas yesterday to American International Group Inc. in connection with investigations into AIG's earnings management techniques relating to certain types of...
Warren Buffett, meet Eliot Spitzer
General Re Corp., the wholly-owned insurance subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has been receiving some interesting mail lately. Berkshire issued a press release on last week (see Form 8-K announcement here) disclosing that the insurer had received subpoenas...
More business crime? Or just more prosecutions?
Readers of this blog know that I am critical of several recent "popular" prosecutions of business executives, and this NY Times article reports on the opinions of several experts who agree with my view: "It is exaggerated to say that...
Saving Medicare
Laurence Kotlikoff writes this rather ominous Tech Central Station piece regarding the financing debacle related to Medicare, in which he observes the following: Buried deep in the bowels of the recently released Medicare Trustees' Report is the first-ever official estimate...
All politics are local, even in Iraq
David Ignatius of the Washington Post (free online subscription required) has some interesting observations in this piece titled "Reassembling Iraq" based on his recent trip to Iraq. The entire piece is well worth reading, and the folloiwng will give you...
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