The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has revived some thorny issues, notably the role of Dick Fuld in the death of Lehman Brothers and the extent to which Goldman Sachs benefitted from a bailout of AIG.

The latter issue has long been contentious, and the FCIC started a new fire by reporting that Goldman received a $2.9 billion windfall from an AIG payment. About $1.9 billion of that was made possible by a government bailout, the FCIC says. These funds were meant to make the bank whole on some proprietary trades, meaning that bank kept the proceeds instead of forwarding them on to a counterparty.

These payments were "separate from the $14 billion Goldman received for credit default swaps from Maiden Lane, the limited liability company set up by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to resolve CDSs from AIG," notes the Guardian. Goldman was roundly criticized for accepting those payments, even though most of that money went to clients that had traded with the bank.

"Thus, unlike the $14 billion received from AIG on trades in which Goldman owed the money to counterparties, this $2.9 billion was retained by Goldman," the report states.

The bank says there was no windfall and that the report mischaracterizes events. Still, some critics think Goldman should pay back the money.

For more:
- here's an article from the Guardian

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