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March 19, 2025
NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals scheduled oral argument for April 1 in a case involving whether microcaptive insurance arrangements are ineligible for federal tax benefits and just over a week later granted an opposed motion for an out-of-time amicus brief by an individual facing IRS penalties who urges the court to adopt the U.S. Tax Court’s interpretation of the timeliness requirement for supervisory approval of penalties.
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March 18, 2025
ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on March 18 affirmed an order compelling arbitration of a dispute over approximately $28 million in damages to an Algerian power plant caused by a turbine failure, finding that insurers, reinsurers and retrocessionaires are subrogees of the plant-owner and therefore bound by an arbitration agreement in a services contract with entities that manufactured the turbine.
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March 18, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO — Both parties have requested oral argument in the First District California Court of Appeal in a workers’ compensation insurance carrier’s challenge to a nonconsensual rehabilitation plan that was approved as part of conservation proceedings brought by California’s insurance regulator and includes resolution of dozens of reinsurance participation agreement (RPA) lawsuits.
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March 18, 2025
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A North Carolina federal judge entered judgment against insurance mogul Greg Lindberg, a former owner of insurers in liquidation and rehabilitation, requiring him to “pay disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and prejudgment” in response to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s motion for judgment, with Lindberg’s consent, in its suit alleging that he, his advisory services company and its former executive defrauded clients of more than $75 million.
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March 18, 2025
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A farmer who says he “exhausted all administrative remedies” filed a complaint in a federal court in South Dakota seeking de novo review of a decision by a federal agency’s independent appeals division after it upheld a determination that a crop insurance regulator lacked authority to issue a noncompliance finding under the farmer’s Whole Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) policy, which reduced a crop loss payout.
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March 17, 2025
WILMINGTON, Del. — Citing compliance with contractual agreements, the manager of a captive insurance and reinsurance pool and others ask a Delaware state court to dismiss a verified derivative complaint filed by a pool member who alleges that the manager and others engaged in an illegal reorganization that transferred policies from its "A" rated pool with more than $1 billion in assets to a new, unrated insurer with limited capitalization.
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March 17, 2025
NEW YORK — In four motions that have drawn opposition, China Construction Bank Corp. (CCBC) and related defendants seek dismissal of claims that stem from the alleged fraud underlying the collapse of nonparty Vesttoo Ltd., arguing primarily that the New York federal court lacks jurisdiction and the claims are not sufficiently stated.
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March 14, 2025
BOSTON — Summary judgment briefing has been suspended for about two months in an indemnification dispute involving a stock purchase agreement (SPA) and reinsurance agreement, with a Massachusetts federal judge granting the parties’ joint request for the suspension in a March 13 text-only order.
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March 14, 2025
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina Administrative Law Court judge has allowed the continued operation of Atlantic Coast Life Insurance Co. (ACL) and ACL’s captive reinsurer, Southern Atlantic Re Inc. (SAR), by rejecting a request to reconsider an earlier order.
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March 10, 2025
By Scott M. Seaman
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March 10, 2025
CHICAGO — An insurer’s motion for partial judgment on the pleadings in an ongoing dispute with its reinsurer was declared moot by a federal judge in Illinois after the parties filed a joint stipulation in which they agreed that the reinsurer will not seek relief for attorney fees or other consequential damages on claims under a reinsurance agreement.
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March 10, 2025
OMAHA, Neb. — A federal judge in Nebraska dismissed with prejudice a suit involving a reinsurance contract and a settlement with the state of Montana over alleged asbestos exposures, following a joint stipulation between the parties to dismiss all claims.
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March 06, 2025
WILMINGTON, Del. — The Delaware Chancery Court approved a stipulation between the receiver for a stock reinsurance company and a life insurance company, allowing the receiver to liquidate at least $58.4 million from a trust account and to distribute at least $49.6 million to the life insurance company.
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March 06, 2025
WILMINGTON, Del. — A member of a captive insurance and reinsurance pool alleges in a complaint filed in a Delaware state court that the pool manager and others engaged in an illegal reorganization that transferred policies from its "A" rated pool with more than $1 billion in assets to a new, unrated insurer with limited capitalization and only $170 million in reinsurance limits.
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March 05, 2025
FRESNO, Calif. — A federal judge in California barred a fact witness in a long-running Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) case from providing opinion testimony based on scientific, technical or specialized knowledge but allowed testimony regarding performed analysis and data review in connection with risk transfer and reinsurance services that he and a partner were hired to provide.
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March 05, 2025
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Calling both sides’ interpretations of facultative reinsurance certificates “plausible,” a New York federal judge denied competing summary judgment motions in a breach of contract suit involving a confidential environmental losses settlement.
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March 05, 2025
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — In a four-page, 19-point ruling on competing motions in limine in a suit over alleged legal malpractice, an Illinois federal judge said in part that she denied the insurer plaintiff’s request to prohibit references to underlying damages that its reinsurers covered because while the insurer “cannot seek to recover the amounts” those reinsurers paid, “there may be some reference to those amounts in seeking damages for [the insurer’s] increased premiums.”
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March 04, 2025
WILMINGTON, Del. — A liquidating trust filed a motion in Delaware federal bankruptcy court seeking approval of a $7.1 million settlement with a company that alleged a number of constructive trust claims against Vesttoo Ltd., an Israel-based fintech startup involved in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
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March 04, 2025
By Scott M. Seaman
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March 04, 2025
HARTFORD, Conn. — The rehabilitator of life insurance company PHL Variable Insurance Co. and various subsidiaries that reinsured its liabilities reached a stipulated agreement allowing a trio of asset managers to intervene in the Connecticut action so that the court can determine setoff rights.
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March 04, 2025
NEW YORK— A London-based reinsurer has filed an answer in a federal court in New York to a breach of contact counterclaim brought by the assignee of the liquidator of an insolvent insurer concerning decades-old asbestos claims; the counterclaim was brought by the assignee after the reinsurer successfully petitioned for a stay of arbitration.
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March 03, 2025
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A reinsurer and a management general agency were granted permission by a New York federal court to dismiss claims against an ambulatory surgery center in an ongoing Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit alleging fraudulent workers’ compensation claims and personal injury lawsuits.
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March 03, 2025
BOSTON — Competing summary judgment motions have been filed in an indemnification dispute, with the plaintiff telling a Massachusetts federal court that it is entitled to damages of at least $75.7 million plus interest and fees under the plain language of a stock purchase agreement (SPA) and reinsurance agreement, and the defendant contending that agreements executed in a later “clean shell” deal constituted a novation of any obligations and that the plaintiff’s conduct since 2013 “is not how an insurer acts with respect to a company that it truly believes is providing it with reinsurance coverage.”
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February 27, 2025
NEW ORLEANS — Five counterclaims that a managing general agent (MGA) asserted against an insurer in a case arising from a fronting arrangement have been dismissed wholly or in part, with a Louisiana federal judge repeatedly citing Louisiana law in his ruling on the insurer’s motion.
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February 26, 2025
LONDON — Saying in part that he doesn’t think an appeal of a final antiarbitration injunction has a “realistic” chance of succeeding, a judge of the High Court of England and Wales denied a reinsurer’s application in a contractual construction case that involves a hierarchy or “confusion” clause; he also weighed in on several disputes regarding costs that the reinsurer will have to pay.