The insurance giant has accused Greenberg of plundering an AIG retirement programme composed of US$4.3 billion in stock in 2005.

AIG called Greenberg to the witness stand early yesterday afternoon in federal court in Manhattan.

When AIG's lawyer Theodore Wells asked about a speech Greenberg made years ago about the fund being intended for future generations, Greenberg said he did not mean future generations only at AIG.

"AIG might be one of the companies," Greenberg said. Greenberg, 84, built AIG over his 35-year career from a small company into the world's largest insurer, and the company of which he is now chairman - Starr International - used to be part of AIG.

Done out of anger

Wells argued on Monday that Greenberg took the stock because he was angry about being ousted in 2005 by AIG amid investigations of accounting irregularities.

Wells said Greenberg, within weeks of being forced out, gave the go-ahead for tens of millions of shares to be sold from a trust fund because he was angry.

The fund was set up decades ago to provide incentive bonuses to select employees that they would receive upon retirement.

But David Boies, the lawyer representing Starr International, says the stock belonged to Starr. AIG has repeatedly acknowledged in the past that Starr International was the beneficial owner of the stock, he said.

"They said it internally, they said it externally," he said yesterday, showing the jury letters and clips of past testimony from AIG officials.

Furthermore, Boies said, documents show that the trust was not only intended to provide retirement bonuses for AIG employees, but also to fund new projects. The documents also show, he added, that ultimately the wealth created was supposed to go to charity.

It is "wrong" and "outrageous" for AIG to try to grab the shares back from Starr, and Greenberg was not trying to take the stock for himself, Boies said.

"He isn't a bad man," Boies said.

- AP