Testifying before Congress today, AIG CEO Gordon Edward Liddy said that the Federal Reserve was aware the bonuses would be paid out and “acquiesced in that decision.” In fact, Liddy claimed that Federal Reserve members were present at AIG’s “compensation committee meetings” with the ability to say “yea or nay”:
REP. KANJORSKI (D-PA): Am I to understand that you’re saying that Chairman Bernanke or his designated person at the Federal Reserve was informed that you were going to make these payments and acquiesced in that decision?
LIDDY: Yes, everything we do, we do in partnership with the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is at our board meetings and our compensation committee meetings and our various meetings on strategy and they have the ability to weigh in — either yea or nay — on anything that we decide.
Watch it:
Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) later asked for clarification on whether the Fed “did not say nay as far as the bonuses were concerned.” Liddy replied that “there was great angst over the payment of these bonuses,” but that the Fed and AIG ultimately decided that “the risk was too great that we would lose all the progress we made if we didn’t pay these bonuses.”