Goldman Sachs Defends Trades With AIG During Financial Crisis

Goldman Sachs (GS) defended its trades and collateral calls with bailed-out insurer AIG (AIG), saying they reflected market conditions during the financial crisis.

Critics have accused Goldman Sachs of benefiting from the U.S. government's taxpayer-funded bailout of AIG. The government pledged as much as $182 billion to resolve problems in the insurer's financial products unit.

In a response to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Goldman said it priced AIG's collateral on the best available market information, Reuters reported. "We made those collateral calls based on prices that reflected the deteriorating conditions in the market for the underlying collateral in Residential Mortgage Backed Securities and CDOs," Goldman told Reuters.