In an exhaustive 161-page ruling issued on Friday, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the Southern District of New York dismissed the majority of the claims brought by plaintiffs seeking damages for losses caused by LIBOR. …
Read More SDNY Judge Guts LIBOR Claims On Motion to Dismiss, But Banks Are Not Off The Hook Yet

HHS UPS MEDICAID EXPANSION PAYMENTS FUNDING
On March 29, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule under which the federal government will pay the entire cost of covering newly eligible enrollees under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion for the first three years of the program. …
Read More Healthcare Update: HHS Ups Medicaid Expansion Payments Funding; BCBS of MI Antitrust Case Dropped

Washington State just became even more hostile to insurers. Recently, the state’s highest court issued two decisions that will make claims-handling yet more difficult in the Evergreen State and that are in opposition to the majority view in U.S. jurisdictions. …
Read More Washington Supreme Court Issues Two Anti-Insurer Decisions

In a complaint filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, home mortgage purchaser Freddie Mac has injected itself into the already sprawling network of cases alleging wrongdoings in connection with the USD LIBOR manipulation scandal. Freddie Mac has named more than a dozen major banks that sat on the USD LIBOR panel as defendants, and, in a new twist, is the first plaintiff to also sue the British Bankers’ Association and several related entities.
Read More Freddie Mac Suit May Change LIBOR Litigation Landscape

Earlier today, the UK Financial Services Authority fined two member companies of the Prudential Group a total of £30 million for failing to disclose its 2010 plan to bid for AIA, the Asian life and pensions arm of American International Group. Prduential plc was fined £14 million, and The Prudential Assurance Company Limited was fined £16 million, for failing to deal with the FSA in an open and cooperative manner. …
Read More UK FSA Fines Prudential £30m, Censures CEO for Failure to Disclose

A hearing by the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment on March 19, 2013 kicked into gear legislation that would allow insurance producers to more easily obtain licensure to sell, solicit or negotiate insurance in multiple states. The National Association of Registered Agents & Brokers Reform Act of 2013 (the “Act”), introduced on March 12, 2013 as S. 534, is a reintroduction of the previous session’s S. 2342. …
Read More Reemergence of the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers Reform Act on Capitol Hill

On 25 March 2013, the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) published a Policy Statement which confirms that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will use its Temporary Product Intervention Rules (TPIRs) power in the way the FSA proposed (see our earlier blog). The FCA will be established, and its TPIR power will become available, on 1 April 2013. …
Read More UK: FSA Confirms FCA Approach to Using Temporary Product Intervention Rules

On March 14, 2013, the NAIC’s Captive and Special Purpose Vehicle Use (E) Subgroup (the “Subgroup”) released a revised version of its White Paper with respect to Special Purposes Vehicles (“SPVs”) and Captives (the “New Draft”). The New Draft is now open for a public comment period until April 28, 2013. …
Read More NAIC Subgroup’s White Paper on Captives and SPVs

On 25 January 2013, Validus Reinsurance Ltd (Validus), a reinsurer domiciled in Bermuda, filed a suit in the District Court of the District of Columbia against the United States of America for the repayment of taxes which they allege were wrongly demanded by the IRS. The tax was assessed under the Federal Excise Tax (FET) regime, which (among other things) imposes a 1% tax on premiums under contracts of reinsurance with foreign reinsurers covering risks in the US (s4371 of the Internal Revenue Code). …
Read More Validus Launches a Challenge to the IRS’ Cascading Federal Excise Tax Ruling