More employees seem to be leaving AIG's controversial financial products group, and that raises some big issues. One reason for paying retention bonuses was that these were mission-critical employees. They created the CDSs, and they were the only ones who could wind them down. Not everyone believes that. There's not a lot of trading going on right now. It's unclear how they would be wound down.

Still there was always an underlying threat that should they walk, they walk with a lot of secret sauce-like knowledge. We may be about to find out how true that was. The situation in Paris, where some fed-up employees have resigned in protest, is a bit different. In that case, the government might appoint new managers to handle CDS contract, which could count as default event. Meanwhile, AIG employees in Europe are adamant about not giving back the money. 

For more:
- here's some background from Reuters

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