Mealey's Reinsurance
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May 13, 2024
2nd Circuit Dismisses Arbitrator Bias Appeal As Moot After Award Is Made
NEW YORK — After being informed that an arbitration award issued the day before oral argument was scheduled to occur mooted the appeal, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel had the parties appear for a brief discussion and then on May 10 dismissed the case, also ordering that the lower court’s ruling be vacated.
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May 13, 2024
Citing Jury Verdict, Plaintiffs Seek Attorney Fees From U.S. In Microcaptive Row
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Following a Florida federal jury ruling against the government in consolidated cases over whether the plaintiffs’ involvement with purported microcaptive insurance companies constituted promotion of abusive tax shelters, the corporate plaintiffs are seeking approximately $600,000 in attorney fees and costs, and the government is countering in part that its position was “substantially justified.”
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May 13, 2024
Parties Brief Summary Judgment Arguments On Reinsurance Loss Allocation
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — In renewed briefing, parties in a suit over multiple reinsurance disputes make summary judgment arguments on a single breach of contract claim, with the reinsurer arguing that the loss for the lawsuit at issue “was properly ceded to the two impacted Treaties” and the insurer contending that the policy requires the two events at issue in the lawsuit “to be treated as one Wrongful Act.”
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May 10, 2024
Defendants Renew Dismissal Arguments In Workers’ Comp Reimbursement Dispute
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — After an Alabama federal judge allowed the plaintiff to file an amended complaint in a dispute over reimbursement for workers’ compensation claims, the defendants started a new round of dismissal briefing regarding breach of contract, bad faith, laches and equitable estoppel claims.
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May 09, 2024
English Court Rules For Claimants In Dispute Over Agreement’s Clause
LONDON — Ruling in Bermudian companies’ dispute over a clause in a reinsurance framework agreement (RFA) on May 9, an English judge said he understands that means “there is an overall sum payable to the Claimants of US$6,523,015.”
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May 08, 2024
Timeliness, Other Issues Raised Over Motion For Final Judgment, Certification
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Arguing in part that “if an interlocutory appeal were to be sought, it should have been sought in 2022,” a reinsurer urged an Illinois federal court to deny a motion in which a railroad company seeks “two alternative grounds for appellate jurisdiction” in a suit over mine subsidence claims.
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May 08, 2024
Lockheed Martin Moves To Dismiss ERISA Suit Over Pension Risk Transfers
GREENBELT, Md. — Moving to dismiss one of a quartet of similar recent putative class actions challenging pension risk transfers (PRTs) under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, Lockheed Martin Corp. told a Maryland federal court that the retirees are receiving all the benefits they are due and fail to state their claims.
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May 02, 2024
Liquidators Stipulate To Dropping Insurers From Adversary Proceeding
NEW YORK — The joint provisional liquidators (JPLs) of Bermuda insurer and reinsurer PB Life and Annuity Co. Ltd. (PBLA) and other debtors filed a May 1 stipulation in New York federal bankruptcy court to dismiss four defendants called the NC Insurance Cos. from an adversary proceeding that involves hundreds of other parties; the JPLs also stipulated to the withdrawal of a related appeal.
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May 02, 2024
Alleging They Were Defrauded, Investors File Related Suits Over $65M Deal
In related complaints filed in Florida and New York state courts over a December 2021 deal, entities that say they invested about $65 million in a managing general agent just months before affiliated insurance companies were liquidated allege that they were defrauded.
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May 01, 2024
Summons Provided For Owner Of Insolvent Insurers In Dispute Over LLC Conversion
WILMINGTON, Del. — A Puerto Rico-based life insurer provided a Delaware state court with a copy of a summons to be served on a Delaware-based entity and its owner, Greg Lindberg, who also owned insolvent insurers, in a suit alleging that Lindberg unlawfully converted the entity from a corporation into a limited liability company as “part of a systematic plan to siphon off assets held by a reinsurance trust” created to protect the Puerto Rico insurer and its policyholders.
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May 01, 2024
Government, Health Plans Brief Tolling Opt-In Class Cases In ACA Reinsurance Row
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In supplemental briefing in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in consolidated cases over allegedly illegal exactions made under the Transitional Reinsurance Program (TRP) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), group health plans and the government agree that there’s a dearth of case law on American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah tolling for opt-in classes.
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May 01, 2024
$42.1M Attorney Fees, Final Approval Sought In Class ACA Reinsurance Row
WASHINGTON, D.C. — None of the 357 class members has objected to a $169,022,397.28 settlement that would resolve part of a lawsuit over the Transitional Reinsurance Program (TRP) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) or a request that class counsel get 25% of that amount for attorney fees, the class representative told the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in a reply brief.
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April 30, 2024
Shareholders To 3rd Circuit: Revive Securities Case Against Reinsurer, Execs
PHILADELPHIA — Arguing in part that one holding “invented a ‘total eclipse’ standard lacking any basis in” Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers Dist. Council Constr. Indus. Pension Fund, shareholders filed an appellant brief challenging discovery and summary judgment rulings in a suit over allegations that a reinsurer and some of its former executives violated federal securities laws.
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April 30, 2024
After Reinsurer Reveal, Parties Dismiss Breach, Bad Faith Suit Over Settlement
NEW ORLEANS — A breach of contract and bad faith suit that the owners and operators of an offshore supply vessel filed against an insurer, an excess insurer and reinsurers was dismissed without prejudice on April 29 in Louisiana federal court under a granted joint motion.
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April 26, 2024
Judge Denies Reconsideration Of Partial Summary Judgment In Malpractice Dispute
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — Saying that legal issues “regarding joinder of the reinsurers as real parties in interest . . . cannot form the basis for reconsideration” because they were not raised before the partial summary judgment ruling at issue, an Illinois federal judge denied an insurer’s motion in a suit over alleged legal malpractice.
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April 26, 2024
New York Panel: Forum- Selection Clause In EquityComp Case Is Unenforceable
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Noting the “many” such cases in various states over the EquityComp workers’ compensation program, a New York state appellate panel affirmed a lower court’s refusal to enforce a forum-selection clause and its refusal to dismiss five causes of action.
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April 25, 2024
Bid For Ruling As To Coverage Exclusions Is Disputed In Suit Over Water Damage
PHOENIX — In a reply brief challenging arguments by an insurer and reinsurer that the ruling it seeks would be advisory, the insured tells an Arizona federal court that what it is really requesting is a proper “partial summary adjudication . . . on two issues of law that are critical in this insurance coverage and bad faith action” over water damage.
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April 25, 2024
Insolvent Insurers’ Owner Asks Delaware Court To Vacate $524M Foreign Judgment
NEW CASTLE, Del. — A judgment debtor and former owner of insolvent insurers ordered by a North Carolina federal court to pay a $524,009,051.26 judgment to a Puerto Rico-based insurer asked a Delaware state court to vacate the foreign judgment, asserting that the insurer has provided “evidence that no payment is required by” the debtor under a reinsurance trust backed by the debtor’s $25 million guarantee.
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April 24, 2024
Railroad Seeks Final Judgment, Certification On Preclusion In Mine Subsidence Row
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — After filing a notice of appeal regarding a partial dismissal order in a suit over mine subsidence claims, a railroad company has moved in an Illinois federal court requesting “two alternative grounds for appellate jurisdiction” that it says would “simplify briefing.”
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April 24, 2024
Alcoa, Independent Fiduciary Are Sued Under ERISA For Pension Risk Transfers
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In what is at least the fourth putative class case filed in the past month challenging pension risk transfers (PRTs), retirees sued Alcoa Corp., related entities and an independent fiduciary in a District of Columbia federal court over four transactions they argue improperly “offloaded over $2 billion of Alcoa’s pension obligations.”
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April 19, 2024
Plaintiffs Win Little In Suit Over Business Deal Involving Reinsurance Distributor
MIAMI — Following a bench trial over “a failed business relationship” involving a managed health care reinsurance distribution company, a Florida federal judge ruled for the defendants on claims for breaches of an asset purchase agreement (APA) and the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, but found that the plaintiffs proved breach of employment agreements based on disparaging comments and salary miscalculations.
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April 18, 2024
English Panel Upholds Stay In Dispute Over Which Reinsurance Agreement Controls
LONDON — Upholding the stay of an English case in a reinsurance dispute and saying “the parties began by playing cricket but then switched to baseball,” a three-justice panel of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales agreed with a lower court that the operative agreement calls for arbitration in New York.
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April 18, 2024
Chapter 11 Liquidation Plan Becomes Effective In Vesttoo Bankruptcy Cases
WILMINGTON, Del. — In a notice outlining several bar dates, the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors told a Delaware federal bankruptcy court that a Chapter 11 plan of liquidation for Vesttoo Ltd. and its dozens of affiliates went into effect after conditions precedent were “satisfied or waived.”
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April 17, 2024
IRS Adds To String Of Tax Court Wins In Case Over Purported Microcaptives
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In line with the handful of U.S. Tax Court rulings in similar cases, a judge has sustained Internal Revenue Service determinations regarding two purported microcaptive insurance companies, concluding that they “failed to distribute risk and were not selling insurance in the commonly accepted sense,” so the purported premiums cannot be deducted as insurance expenses on federal income taxes.
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April 16, 2024
Tax Attorney, Government Seek Consent Judgment In Microcaptive Penalty Row
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Asking a Florida federal court to enter a consent judgment in their dispute over penalties for purported promotion of abusive tax shelters in the form of microcaptive insurance companies, a tax attorney and the federal government say in an April 15 motion that their settlement agreement includes the attorney’s “payment of $5,200,000, inclusive of payments already made.”