NEW YROK(Bloomberg) — Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the ousted chief executive officer of American International Group, fired back at AIG yesterday in a countersuit claiming the insurer's directors and managers are liable for inappropriate financial restatements.Greenberg said self-interested former colleagues including his successor, Martin Sullivan, breached their fiduciary duty in overseeing restatements that unnecessarily lowered AIG's 2000 to 2005 earnings by $3.4 billion. AIG spokesman Joe Norton said the claims, filed in Delaware Chancery Court in response to an AIG lawsuit last week, are "without merit."

"The harm to AIG's shareholders caused by the restatement was the result not of any improper conduct by Mr. Greenberg but of the determination by AIG's current board and management to justify their opposition to Mr. Greenberg and insulate themselves from liability," Greenberg's lawyer, David Boies, said in a statement.

Greenberg's response escalates his fight with the company he ran for 38 years. New York-based AIG, in a June 13 amendment to a suit originally filed by its shareholders, blamed Greenberg and former chief financial officer Howard Smith for directing the accounting practices that led to the restatements and a $1.64 billion settlement of state and federal probes.

"AIG's complaint was the product of a thorough investigation by a committee of independent directors," Norton said. "Mr. Greenberg's claims are inconsistent with the judgement of that independent committee and are without merit."

The countersuit also names PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, AIG's auditor. Michelle McQuaid, a spokeswoman for the New York-based accounting firm, didn't return phone calls after regular business hours.

AIG shares, more than $73 before the company got subpoenas in February 2005, lost about a third of their value in the ensuing months. Since then, the stock has come within 31 cents of its price before the probe.