Tony Ondrusek
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Tony Ondrusek is founder and publisher of Insurance & Financial Advisor and IFAwebnews.com.

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Hank Greenberg and the company that he built into a behemoth, AIG, have stopped throwing sand and have agreed to play nicely in the sandbox.

Representatives of both have signed documents stating that they are ending their spat; Greenberg and his partner in C.V. Starr & Co. will get up to $150 million paid to them in legal fees, and AIG will no longer be the target of Greenberg’s legal wrath. (click here for story)

In the meantime, the on-again-off-again love affair with its CEO, Robert Benmosche, appears to be on again, now that the AIG board has officially approved his $7 million compensation package. (click here for story)

So now life can go on as usual with AIG.

Of course, none of this means that Greenberg will no longer hire away AIG executives to work in his new firm; and nowhere has the government agreed that it won’t meddle in AIG’s compensation programs, which was a major bone of contention for Benmosche. (The Fed basically ‘owns’ AIG after the big bailout.) And it doesn’t take away any of the sting for AIG that earlier this year, Greenberg walked away with a slap on the wrist of only a $15 million SEC penalty when he could have faced a forfeiture of more than $4 billion in repayments to AIG that was originally sought. (click here for story)

Perhaps most important in all the legal wrangling, however, is that Hank Greenberg will walk away with millions of dollars, talented executives to run his new firm, and the knowledge that in all aspects he has emerged the winner. According to the agreement between Greenberg and AIG, he also gets to take home with him a Persian rug that was located in the board room of AIG’s New York headquarters.

It’s great to be the king.

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