A senior Marsh vice president had pleaded guilty to criminal charges raised by New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer.
Robert Stearns has become the first Marsh employee to plead guilty to charges in Spitzer's investigation into compensation and sales practices in the insurance industry
The 20-year veteran of Marsh was in court to plead guilty to a first-degree count of scheming to defraud. He could face up to four years in jail.
According to the complaint against Stearns, between September 2002 and 2004, he and other Marsh personnel "routinely" instructed insurers to submit quotes —called "backup quotes", "protective quotes", "B quotes", or "B's" — on excess casualty coverage that he, Marsh, and the insurers in question knew were not competitive with those of incumbent carriers, all with the intent of protecting the incumbent carriers' business.
In a statement, Marsh said it was "saddened" by the news of Stearns' guilty plea.
