It appears that the senior managers at AIG’s Paris division of AIG’s Financial Products, Banque AIG, wrote $234 billion in derivatives contracts so that they would likely be technically be in default if they left the firm:

The executives at Paris-based Banque AIG, Mauro Gabriele and James Shephard, have resigned in recent days but have agreed to stay on for a transition, according to people familiar with the matter. In the wake of their resignations, AIG must replace them to the satisfaction of French banking regulators.

If they don’t, French regulators may appoint their own designee to manage the bank — an outcome that could trigger defaults under the bank’s derivative contracts. The private contracts say that a regulator’s appointment of a manager constitutes a change in control, according to a person familiar with the matter; the provision is often included in derivative contracts where parties want to preserve a way out if something about their counterparties changes.

Seriously, this is fraud. They essentially cooked to books to maximize the possibility that, if they left, there was a real risk of the a technical default.

We need to start throwing these folks in jail by the hundreds, and not a “white-collar resort prison,” they should be going to a, “POUND ME IN THE ASS prison,” to quote Office Space.