AIG: Accounting and Ethical Lapses

Abstract

American International Group, Inc. (AIG) has recently been charged with reporting bogus transactions that hid losses and inflated its net worth. The New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer alleges that AIG inflated reserves used for paying claims by millions of dollars and that AIG's CEO Maurice Greenberg repeatedly directed AIG traders late in the day to buy AIG shares to prop up its price, among other allegations. We examine the accounting errors for which AIG and Greenberg are being charged and analyze the opportunities missed by the auditors to detect problems, within the framework of corporate governance. That is, we evaluate the corporate environment that supported these lapses and provided an environment conducive to the perpetration and acceptance of fradulent reporting. We discuss how corporate governance not only promotes better financial reporting, but provides a level of scrutiny that encourages more ethical behavior at all levels of the corporate hierarchy, and we discuss the imperative for accounting education.

Citation

Maury, M.D., McCarthy, I.N. and Shoaf, V. (2007), "AIG: Accounting and Ethical Lapses", Flanagan, P., Primeaux, P. and Ferguson, W. (Ed.) Insurance Ethics for a More Ethical World (Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations, Vol. 7), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 39-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1529-2096(06)07003-9