Top Risk Officers Still at AIG: Report

Many executives who approved the risk-taking at American International Group before the U.S. government came to the insurer's aid remain in their positions, a report says.

Author:: Joseph Woelfel
Publish date:: Mar 27, 2009 1:17 AM EDT

Many of the high-level executives at

American International Group

(AIG) - Get Report

who approved the insurer's risk-taking before AIG's near collapse remain in their positions, the

Wall Street Journal

reports.

A group of top executives called the Credit Risk Committee, which oversaw some of AIG's biggest bets such as the insurer's move into credit-default swaps, remains largely unchanged, the

Journal

reports, citing internal company documents. At least five of the 10 committee members have served for years, and some served as far back as 2003 and 2004, the

Journal

reports.

The U.S. government has flagged AIG's risk management as an area of concern, the

Journal

notes. As a condition of investing $40 billion in AIG in November, the Treasury Department required AIG's board to create a new risk-management committee to "oversee the major risks involved in

AIG's business operations and review

AIG's actions to mitigate and manage those risks."

AIG has received almost $183 billion in aid from the U.S. government to help keep the insurance company afloat.

Among the longtime risk-committee members are Robert Lewis, AIG's chief risk officer since 2004; Kevin McGinn, chief credit officer and chairman of the committee; Win Neuger, chief executive of AIG Investments; and William Dooley, head of AIG's financial-services division, which includes the financial-products unit that sold the credit-default swaps, according to the

Journal

AIG said in a statement to the newspaper: "AIG is committed to strong risk management. ...Recently, consistent with the terms of the U.S. Treasury's preferred investment in AIG, the company has clarified the authority regarding the board's now-named Finance and Risk Committee. The committee, among other things, reports to and assists the board in overseeing and reviewing information regarding AIG's enterprise risk management."