It was a narrative that the judge called “worthy of an Oliver Stone movie.” In 2008 the Federal Reserve Board seized control of American International Group Inc. as “the global financial system teetered on the brink of collapse.” Then, “in an act of Napoleonic plunder, [it] stole AIG’s assets, redistributing some to shore up other flagging [banks] while keeping much of the residue for itself.”
Sinister as it may sound, this narrative was highly credible coming from superlawyer David Boies of Boies, Schiller & Flexner and his No. 1 client, former AIG chairman Maurice Greenberg. Greenberg’s Starr International Company Inc. tapped Boies to sue the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on theories of constitutional and fiduciary law in 2011, demanding $25 billion in damages.
