This morning's Wall Street Journal reports that several executives at AIG won't be criminally prosecuted.
The decision brings to a close a criminal investigation that, while mostly under wraps, was widely followed. The September 2008 bailout of AIG was one of the biggest and most shocking of the financial crisis, as trading by a noninsurance unit brought down one of the most iconic financial companies world-wide.
The probe focused on Joseph Cassano, who headed a London-based unit of AIG called Financial Products, people familiar with the matter have said. Other executives at the unit, Andrew Forster and Tom Athan, also were targets of the investigation, these people said.
Until last fall, it looked like Cassano was going to be racked up on fraud charges for his role in putting together the insurance-like contracts that nearly brought down AIG--and the economy with it--in 2008. However, that changed when prosecutors obtained information about what Cassano disclosed to AIG's auditor, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and to AIG executives.
Cassano and friends aren't out of the woods yet, however. The SEC apparently hasn't ruled out civil charges.