Say what you like about Maurice (Hank) Greenberg, the financier is a dogged old coot. For almost ten years now, since an accounting scandal forced him to resign from American International Group, the big insurance company he ran for decades, Greenberg, who is eighty-nine, has been trying to redeem his reputation and exact revenge on those he deems responsible for his downfall.
Greenberg’s initial target was Eliot Spitzer, who, when he was the Attorney General of New York, launched an investigation into A.I.G.’s accounting practices—an investigation that, in 2005, prompted Greenberg to resign with his reputation in tatters. Greenberg hasn’t forgiven Spitzer; just last year, he sued him for defamation. (The case is still pending, though part of it has been dismissed. Spitzer has denied wrongdoing.) But, since 2008, Greenberg’s primary target has been the regulators and Federal Reserve officials who orchestrated a government bailout of A.I.G. that prevented the firm from collapsing, though at a substantial cost to its stockholders, including Greenberg. (After he left A.I.G.’s board, he remained one of the firm’s largest shareholders.)
