Former AIG chief Maurice "Hank" Greenberg (left), has sued former New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (right), accusing him of defamation.Getty Images
Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, former chief executive of American International Group, may pursue large parts of his defamation lawsuit against former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a New York state appeals court ruled.
Wednesday’s decision by the Appellate Division in Brooklyn, New York came seven months after Greenberg, 92, reached a $9 million settlement with Eric Schneiderman, the current state attorney general, of civil accounting fraud charges first brought by Spitzer in 2005.
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The complaint “adequately stated that Spitzer acted with actual malice” in criticizing Greenberg, with a goal of damaging Greenberg’s reputation and career while bolstering his own, Justice Cheryl Chambers wrote for a four-judge panel.
Greenberg and Spitzer had been appealing a June 2014 lower court ruling letting Greenberg pursue part of his case against Spitzer, his longtime nemesis. The appeals court restored some claims that had been dismissed.
“We are, of course, pleased with the appellate court’s decision, which will now permit Mr. Greenberg’s claims to proceed to trial,” Greenberg’s longtime lawyer, David Boies, said in an email.
Spitzer’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.
Greenberg objected to statements Spitzer made in television interviews in 2012 and a book, “Protecting Capitalism Case By Case,” in 2013.
He said the statements falsely implicated him in fraud at AIG, and suggested he was “removed” or “thrown out” by the insurer’s board because of his role, among other allegations.
The appeals court said Spitzer’s background as attorney general could have left listeners “less skeptical” and “more willing” to believe him, including when he told then-CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo that “Hank Greenberg at AIG committed fraud. The record on that is indisputable.”
It said the lower court judge erred in dismissing claims over Spitzer’s statements tying Greenberg’s 2005 exit from AIG to fraud there, citing a lack of evidence of such a link.
AIG paid $1.64 billion in 2006 to settle regulatory probes into its business practices. Two years later, it received what became a $182.3 billion bailout by the federal government.
In May, a federal appeals court said the bailout was legal and that Greenberg’s Starr International Co, a big AIG shareholder, had no legal right to challenge it. Starr had sought more than $40 billion of damages for shareholders.
After leaving the attorney general’s office, Spitzer served as New York’s governor for 15 months before resigning in 2008, after being linked to a high-end prostitution ring.
The case is Greenberg v Spitzer, New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, 2nd Department, No. 2014-07682.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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