Three plead guilty to rigging insurance bids

Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2005 | 9:27 a.m.

A senior executive at Marsh & McLennan Cos. and two employees of the American International Group pleaded guilty Tuesday to criminal charges of rigging bids for corporate insurance policies.

Six other executives, one from Marsh and two of them from AIG, had earlier pleaded guilty in an investigation of the insurance industry by the New York attorney general. All nine are cooperating with investigators, who say they already have leads implicating several dozen executives at Marsh, the world's largest insurance broker, and several major insurance companies.

"We're just beginning," said Darren Dopp, a spokesman for Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general.

The senior executive at Marsh, Joshua Bewlay, 39, a managing director in charge of a unit in the company's Global Broking operation, is the highest ranking executive so far to plead guilty, Spitzer's office said, and his testimony and court documents made public Tuesday provided more detail on how customers were cheated.