New York Law Blog

The economy has been on the forefront of people’s minds for quite a while now, and the injection of federal funds into American International Group has New York state’s Attorney General Andrew Cuomo launching a probe into “unwarranted and outrageous expenditures”. Mr. Cuomo sent a cease and desist letter to AIG’s board of directors today in regards to their perceived over the top spending.

In a letter to AIG’s board of directors Wednesday, Cuomo said his office is looking into the expenditures, which he called "irresponsible and damaging" given the lifeline the insurance giant received from the U.S. government.

The attorney general called on AIG’s directors to cease and desist any such further expenditures and review, rescind and recover all past unreasonable expenditures. Cuomo said his office would take legal action if AIG’s board failed to cooperate.

"In the last several months, as AIG was teetering toward bankruptcy, and operating with unreasonably small capital, AIG nevertheless made numerous extraordinary expenditures in the form of executive compensation payments, junkets and perks for its executives," Cuomo said.

There were several expenditures in particular that Mr. Cuomo pointed out as “extraordinary” such as cash bonuses to executives and money spent on luxury retreats for employees. Mr. Cuomo believes the expenditures violate New York state law and requested that the board of AIG supply the office of the attorney general with accounting documentation dating back to January 2007.

New York state attorney general Andrew Cuomo is making big strides in the quest to rid the internet of child pornography, coming down especially hard on internet service providers who allow those materials to be accessed via their networks. In an agreement with the attorney general, AOL, AT&T (the nation’s largest internet provider), Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint Nextel will remove access to alt.* newsgroups which have become a breeding ground for child pornography materials. Cuomo has even launched a website at NYStopChildPorn.com to aid those who would like to join in the fight to have other internet service providers follow suit, as well as keep the general public informed of where things stand. But is this for the greater good of the public, or just a matter of self promotion for the attorney general? John Timmer with ArsTechnica.com believes that may be the case.

Regardless of how you feel about Cuomo’s efforts or the implementation of his agreements by the ISPs, it’s difficult to interpret the new site as anything more than an effort in self promotion. Its intent is signaled by the entry page, which is entitled "Press Releases" and contains an animation that rotates through four photos of Cuomo announcing the site’s launch. Three of the four sentences in the draft letter to ISPs include Cuomo’s name, and the fourth refers to him by his title.

Whatever the motives may be, the campaign is a fantastic step towards a policy of eradicating such content from the internet. Will the attorney general’s office use what the article calls “a combination of legal threats and public shaming” to make sure that all internet service providers in the state are on board with the program? Or will the remaining ISP’s take the initiatives on their own?