The Northern District of Illinois recently granted a motion to remand filed by an insolvent insurer’s assignee because the removal contravened the forum-selection clauses of the reinsurance agreements at issue. Pine Top Receivables of Illinois LLC (PTRIL) sued Transfercom Ltd. (Transfercom) in Illinois state court for breach of contract and certain state law claims. Pine Top Insurance Company’s rights to certain accounts receivable due from reinsurers were assigned to PTRIL when the insurer became insolvent.
On September 24, Southern District of Florida District Court Judge James I. Cohn issued an opinion affirming an order approving the settlement of a debtor’s breach of fiduciary duty, corporate waste, and mismanagement claims against its former directors and officers barring non-debtors’ claims against the former directors and officers entered by Southern District of Florida Bankruptcy Court Judge Raymond B.
Rhode Island recently amended its Credit for Reinsurance Act to include two provisions regarding credits for reinsurance relating to the insolvency of the ceding insurer.
A superior court in New Hampshire has entered two orders – one concerning Arrowood Surplus Lines Insurance Company, the other&
Following the Texas Attorney General’s objection to the sale of RadioShack Corporation’s consumer data as an asset in its bankruptcy, 37 other state attorneys general and a large number of other consumer protection entities formally raised similar concerns. RadioShack, which filed for bankruptcy on February 5, 2015, revealed in a representative’s deposition on March 20, 2015 that it held personally identifiable consumer data of 117 million consumers, or 37% of the residential population of the United States.
Since its 1989 opinion in Folendore v. Small Business Admin., the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed debtors to completely strip off and void wholly unsecured junior liens in Chapter 7 bankruptcies under Section 506(d) of the Bankruptcy Code. Complete lien stripping forever prevents creditors from seeking relief against a debtor’s collateral if it is underwater, even if the property value later increases. Since Chapter 7 debtors are also discharged of personal liability, subordinate debt is, in such cases, rendered worthless.
That may soon change.
In July of this year, the State Corporation Commission of the Commonwealth of Virginia issued an Order declaring Southern Title Insurance Company insolvent and ordering its liquidation.
On September 4, 2014, the receivership court for the Reliance Insurance Company (“Reliance’) estate (the “Reliance Estate”) approved a settlement agreement allowing the Liquidator to terminate and commute the obligations between Odyssey and Reliance under the reinsurance agreements.
A Pennsylvania appellate court has affirmed the liquidator’s determination that a group excess insurance policy issued by Reliance is a reinsurance policy and thereby entitled to a low level of priority of payment from the now insolvent Reliance estate. At issue was a claim by the Alabama Insurance Guaranty Association for reimbursement from the estate for a claim it had paid to a general contractors fund.
Liability insurance policies typically exclude coverage for obligations arising out of the insured’s “assumption of liability in a contract or agreement.” Earlier this year, the Texas Supreme Court took a narrow view of this exclusion: in the landmark decision in Ewing Construction Co. v. Amerisure Insurance Co., 420 S.W.3d 30 (Tex.