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 Many large companies deploy a handful of staff to provide access to
Capitol Hill and the White House, but AIG has employed no officially
registered lobbyists since 2009. Some of its government relations
positions in Washington, which companies typically use to influence
policymaking by regulators and other government officials, have been
left vacant.
Yet in May of this year, Lauren Scott started working as AIG's
director for international regulatory and government affairs in
Washington, according to her LinkedIn profile. She was previously a
director of international and insurance regulation at the American
Council of Life Insurers, a trade group.
That follows the arrival in February of Mary Frances Monroe - a
former Federal Reserve supervisor who worked for a Washington
consultancy firm - as AIG's head of international regulatory in
February, also according to LinkedIn.
Scott and Monroe did not respond to requests for comment. AIG
declined to comment.
The lobbying build-up comes at a critical time for the insurer,
which has been subject to new supervision by the Federal Reserve
after it was designated as a "systemically important" firm by a top
U.S. regulatory panel.
It is not clear whether the two will officially register as
lobbyists, something that anyone spending more than 20 percent of
their working hours on influencing senior U.S. policymakers needs to
do. It is also unclear how much of their work is domestic, and how
much focused on international lobbying.
Monroe worked as a registered lobbyist in a previous position, but
Scott did not, according to official records.
The company said in October 2008 it would stop lobbying. It had
faced public criticism when it continued to spend heavily to
influence lawmakers despite receiving a $182 billion bailout that
gave the government a majority stake, and because it continued to
pay staff big bonuses.
The company, which says it has customers in more than 130 countries
and jurisdictions, almost collapsed when a little-known London unit,
AIG Financial Products, racked up colossal losses through complex
derivative transactions it had engaged in.
But it is now slowly returning to normal, and has repaid the bailout
funds to the government.
AIG's shares still linger at a fraction of where they were before
the crisis, but it has resolved litigation and streamlined the
business, and the company's second-quarter profit beat expectations
earlier this month.
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The Financial Stability Oversight Council, which brings together all
the key U.S. financial regulators and is chaired by Treasury
Secretary Jack Lew, has designated AIG and one other insurer,
Prudential <PRU.N>, as systemically important, and is considering
doing the same with MetLife Inc <MET.N>.
While AIG did not fight its designation, the insurance industry is
trying to convince Congress to ease a provision in the 2010
Dodd-Frank financial reform law that applies strict bank capital
standards to "systemically important" insurers. They argue the
bank-specific approach is a bad fit for insurers' distinct business
model.
RAMPING UP
AIG spent $11 million on lobbying Congress in both 2007 and 2008 -
putting it among top spenders of that period, along with other major
companies such as General Electric <GE.N> and Exxon Mobil <XOM.N> -
but it quickly pulled back after that, and it did not spend at all
in either 2010 or 2011, official records show.
In 2012, it started spending again -- paying $120,000 for the
services of law firm Patton Boggs when AIG was selling a majority
stake in one of its units.
In 2013, it spent $140,000, and so far this year $80,000 with the
same firm, now called Squire Patton Boggs, or with Ernst & Young,
according to the Senate lobbying database.
Its Political Action Committee, or PAC - a fund to donate to
election campaigns - donated $337,358 in 2008, with politicians on
both sides of the aisle benefiting, but the organization has been
dormant after 2010.
However, AIG in a recent job advertisement was looking to hire
someone to perform "day-to-day AIG PAC activities", to coordinate
with fundraising committees for candidates, and to "assist with
planning AIG PAC events" - a sign that it may be planning to make
political donations again.
(Reporting by Douwe Miedema, additional reporting by Sarah Lynch;
Editing by Karey Van Hall and Martin Howell)
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