(Bloomberg) ? New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer indicted eight former Marsh & McLennan Cos. executives, setting the stage for the first trials in his probe of bid- rigging at the world?s biggest insurance broker.

The executives, who include former managing directors William Gilman and Joseph Peiser, were charged with a total of 37 counts, including scheming to defraud, grand larceny, and restraining trade and competition, Spitzer said in a statement yesterday. The attorney general sued Marsh & McLennan in October, accusing the brokerage of fixing prices and steering business to insurers that paid hidden fees.

Spitzer probably built his cases on evidence supplied by 16 former employees of Marsh & McLennan and four insurers who have pleaded guilty in the past 11 months, said Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor. Spitzer?s allegations against the company wiped out 37 percent of its market value and triggered the ouster of Jeffrey Greenberg as chief executive last year.

?The strategy in all these prosecutions is to secure cooperation and slowly build cases against more senior participants,? said Frenkel, who now practices law in Rockville, Maryland.

Greg Doherty, Kathleen Drake, Thomas Green, Edward Keane, William McBurnie, and Edward McNenney were also indicted, the statement said. Marsh & McLennan spokesman Jim Fingeroth had no immediate comment.

Marsh & McLennan settled Spitzer?s suit in January, agreeing to pay $850 million in restitution to clients who may have been overcharged and eliminating the fees it demanded from insurers. The New York-based company didn?t admit or deny wrongdoing.

According to the October suit, Gilman, 62, enforced a system of fake bidding at the world?s largest broker, threatening to take business away from insurers such as American International Group Inc. if they didn?t inflate quotes, ensuring clients would renew their policies with existing insurers.

?As he put it: Marsh `protected AIG?s ass? when it was the incumbent carrier, and it expected AIG to help Marsh `protect? other incumbents,? Spitzer said in the suit.

One handwritten memo included as an exhibit to the suit says ?Per W. Gilman, Get to right number or `we?ll kill you.??

Spitzer has wrested guilty pleas from seven former Marsh & McLennan executives and nine former employees at insurers AIG, Ace Ltd., Zurich Financial Services AG, and Liberty Mutual Group in connection with the bid-rigging probe. Greenberg?s father, Maurice ?Hank? Greenberg, ran AIG, the world?s largest insurer, for almost 40 years before he was removed in March amid a separate Spitzer investigation of accounting practices.

Marsh & McLennan hasn?t increased profit in a year and has struggled to attract prospective clients, Michael Cherkasky, the new chief executive, said in August. Cherkasky has cut more than 5,000 jobs, slashed the shareholder dividend, and replaced executives.

Aon Corp. and Willis Group Holdings Ltd., Marsh & McLennan?s two biggest competitors, also scrapped fees from insurers to settle investigations. Neither admitted or denied wrongdoing.