Insurance giant in kickbacks probe sacks 3,000

Marsh & McLennan, the world’s largest insurance brokerage, is to axe 3,000 staff as it struggles with the fallout from a kickbacks probe by New York’s attorney general.

The New York-based company said in a statement accompanying its third-quarter earnings report that it was cutting 5% of its workforce “based on the realities of the marketplace and our current situation”.

The company sacked its chief executive last month and announced that it was adopting “significant reforms” to its business operations, including ethics training and the permanent elimination of incentive fees that New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer denounced as kickbacks.

The value of the company’s shares has fallen more than 40% since Spitzer announced his investigation.