AIG Boss Liddy to Step Down

American International Group (AIG) Chairman and CEO Edward Liddy will leave once his board has found a replacement, the embattled insurance giant announced Thursday.

Liddy, the former CEO of Allstate (ALL), took over AIG in September after an emergency government bailout allowed the company to avoid a bankruptcy federal regulators have said they feared could have had a catastrophic effect on the global financial system.

Though Liddy agreed to take the position for a dollar, his tenure has been marked by controversy. He was criticized by members of Congress for approving large bonus payments to AIG executives in the AIG unit that caused the company's collapse, and later publicly criticized in an editorial in The New York Times by one of those executives, who said he failed to defend them before Congress.

Liddy served on the board of Goldman Sachs (GS) before taking over AIG, one of many connections between AIG and Goldman that has led to accusations that the interests of Goldman took precedence over the national interest in the AIG bailout.

AIG has received more federal bailout money than any other company during the current crisis.

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