Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg gave his wife the vast majority of his $2.3 billion in shares of American International Group Inc. (AIG) in an effort to shield the fortune from future lawsuits, a person close to his legal team told The Wall Street Journal.

Though this person said the tactic wasn't intended to protect the fortune from any lawsuits that could spring from the current accounting scandal at AIG, Mr. Greenberg wanted to protect the wealth he built up during nearly four decades running the financial company from unrelated litigation that might later crop up.

Estate-planning experts have been scratching their heads over why Mr. Greenberg, 79 years old, would have transferred the shares to his wife last month, given that there appears to be no concrete tax advantage to his estate in doing so. White-collar lawyers noted that, should Mr. Greenberg ever face fines or civil judgments against him in connection with the months-long accounting probes into AIG, the transfer isn't likely to stop government agencies or victorious plaintiffs from tapping the huge fortune in company stock.

Ordinarily, successful plaintiffs or the government can get their hands on assets of a defendant's spouse if a court is convinced the assets were transferred specifically to protect them from litigation that a defendant saw coming down the pike. However, the transfer can withstand plaintiffs' challenge more easily if it was made well before any lawsuit loomed, lawyers said.

-Wall Street Journal Staff Reporters Theo Francis and Ian McDonald contributed to this article. Dow Jones Newswires 04-14-05 0519ET Copyright (C) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.