But it's business, and it's a big decision for AIG, seeing if the company has the huevos to join forces with its former chief executive, Maurice R. Greenberg, who launched the lawsuit in 2011.

Greenberg's still a major AIG investor and his suit claims that by taking control of over 90 percent of the company, charging high interest rates and paying off the company's clients, the federal government took money from AIG shareholders. And also violated the Fifth Amendment, for nabbing private property for public use. 

This week's meeting will help determine if the company can walk the line between being responsible to its many shareholders (particularly the more vocal of them) and still appear to be gracious for the many billions in federal aid which helped keep the floundering insurance giant solvent.

After all, AIG has become something of a codeword in Washington for "why, exactly, did we spend all that money bailing those guys out, which seemed to have irritated the American public to no end?"

Greenberg's suit has already cost the federal government millions in legal costs – his firm apparently requested 16 million pages of documents from Washington to help make its case.

A federal judge has already dismissed the suit, suggesting that AIG ought to have been happy with the fact that the federal government was willing to help bail out the company at all - as it's still in existence, and climbing back out of its credit-default-swap-created hole – though both a Second Circuit appeals court and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims are waiting to see what AIG says about the suit.

On the retirement industry side of the fence, the company's decision will be interesting to watch for a couple of plausible outcomes. We've already seen a wave of lawsuits begin from participant-level investors who claim that their 401(k) assets were mismanaged, misrepresented or otherwise manhandled in a fashion that they didn't get the returns they were promised – and you can just tell there will be more on the horizon.

It also speaks to some general observations about the nature of investment – and some parties involved – who seem to follow the '60s doublespeak that "we had to destroy the village in order to save it," meaning that they would have been more satisfied for the company to have gone out of business than to have had it rescued by the Feds. I seem to remember Rush Limbaugh doing some gloating on that level a year or so back.

Walk softly and carry a large team of attorneys. You may get your way.

Editor's Note: Happily, as we learned a couple of days later, there can be just a small amount of humility – not to mention an understanding on the optics involved – when it comes to even a major corporation opting out of an openly mean-spirited lawsuit, as AIG eventually decided to do. The company seems to have made the right move, and will serve to distance itself from the crazed and greedy lawsuit that Greenberg will continue to try to pursue on his own.