Former General Re CEO Ronald Ferguson asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege rather than testify in the SEC and DOJ investigation of AIG-General Re reinsurance transactions, and promptly lost his consulting contract with Berkshire Hathaway.  Ferguson was CEO of General Re when Berkshire Hathaway acquired the company in 1998, and left that position in 2001 when the company suffered substantial underwriting losses.  A press release issued by Berkshire Hathaway (here) states that Ferguson had been subpoenaed to testify in the investigation. He now joins, among others, former AIG CEO Maurice Greenberg and former AIG CFO Howard Smith as one of the senior executives to have invoked the Fifth Amendment to resist answering questions in the investigation.  As discussed in an earlier post (here), New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office is conducting a grand jury investigation that has already heard from one AIG executive, Joseph Umansky.  The pace is quickening as another one rides the Fifth Amendment privilege bus. (ph)