The federal law enforcement probe into the financial affairs of the Dodgers’ controlling owner, Mark Walter, seems to focus on what looks like an obscure financial maneuver: related-party transactions.

They are deals between entities with business or personal ties, including loans, sales and other transactions, that can have legitimate reasons but pose potential conflicts of interest and typically require extra scrutiny.

Walter tapped insurers he controlled to provide most of the financing for the $2.15-billion acquisition of the Dodgers in 2012, The Times has reported — a deal later vetted by state insurance regulators.

Now, regulators reportedly are investigating whether billions of dollars’ worth of similar loans made by Walter’s companies were properly disclosed.

There are examples in which related-party transactions led to trouble, including the 2001 bankruptcy of Enron Corp., the largest at the time in Wall Street history. Bernie Madoff profited from his Ponzi scheme through related-party loans.

At issue with Walter is $21 billion in loans not disclosed to state insurance regulators that were made by two Delaware insurers he owns, according to ratings agency Fitch. The loans reportedly were made to companies with ties to Walter or his TWG Global holdings company.

The seriousness of the investigation has been highlighted by subpoenas served on the insurers and the reported seizure of Walter’s cellphone and laptop by federal authorities. Still, investigations by prosecutors and securities regulators can result in no action.

Here are more details on the risk presented by related-party transactions and why they require disclosure and extra regulatory scrutiny.

What do the investigations mean for his ownership of his sport teams?

The 66-year-old billionaire also took a majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers last year and owns the Chelsea soccer team in the English Premier League. There is no indication yet that any of this has affected his ownership stakes, but the probe has yet to be completed.

What is the problem with related-party transactions?

Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant who worked on the Enron and Madoff cases, says the issue comes down to the motivation of the parties and can be explained through an analogy.

Sell a car to a stranger and you both research its worth and come to an agreed “fair market value,” he said. Sell it to your brother, you might cut the price to “give him a deal,” and later even forgive the payments.

“That’s why, from an audit standpoint, there should be more scrutiny if you’re doing business with the left hand and the right hand, because it’s easier to manipulate things,” Dubinsky said. “Repayments can be delayed indefinitely. They are always more suspect to fraud.”

How does that play out in the insurance industry?

Insurance is one of the most regulated industries, since the companies hold premium dollars from policyholders for future claims payouts — and regulators want to ensure the money is there when it’s needed. Related-party transactions can threaten that.

“There is a conflict of interest between the policyholders’ interest in the company being profitable and the owner’s interest in getting the least expensive financing that is available,” said Jim Donelon, who served as Louisiana insurance commissioner for 18 years before stepping down in 2024.

“It potentially threatens the solvency of the company, which then threatens the welfare of the policyholders,” Donelon said.

The National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners, for whom Donelon served as president, provides guidance to regulators on how to review related-party transactions.

What are some of the most notable examples of related-party transactions turning into financial disasters?

The failure of Enron was a prime lesson in how related-party transactions can lead to a company’s downfall.

As the Houston energy trader struggled and racked up $30 billion in debt, chief financial officer Andrew Fastow thought he found a way to keep it off Enron’s books. He created off-balance sheet entities to unload the debt and took personal stakes in them, allowing him to sit on both sides of the negotiation and pocket millions.

They were “transactions with related parties that were not at arm’s length,” Dubinsky said.

The debacle was a driving force in the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which tightened regulations over governance, accounting and related-party transactions.

What about the Madoff fraud?

The Madoff scandal, in which investors lost $17.5 billion in invested principal, operated like a typical Ponzi scheme with returns to older investors paid by money from new investors.

However, related-party transactions were key too, and some literally involved family members. Madoff’s brother, Peter, pleaded guilty to receiving $15.7 million in sham loans and giving $9.9 million in sham loans to family members. What’s more, the auditor was a related party.

“In Madoff, what were called ‘related‑party loans’ were just sham transactions — there was no real economic substance. It was simply Madoff taking money out of his own firm,” said Dubinsky, an expert witness for the government.

Is there anything comparable with the Walter probe?

The three situations appear entirely different, but the investigation into the related-party loans made by Walter’s Delaware Life and its affiliate, Clear Spring Life and Annuity, involves vast sums of money.

After receiving the subpoenas, the firms conducted internal investigations. They had reported having $1 billion in related-party loans but, after the review, they reclassified $21 billion worth of loans as related, including $4.6 billion held by Clear Spring, said Fitch analyst Jamie Tucker, senior director of North American insurance ratings.

Executives said they were unaware the loans were going to an affiliated company.

Is there any indication what the money was used for?

“Unclear at this stage,” Tucker said. “This a developing situation with ongoing investigations.”

One clue may be a report that Walter tapped insurers to fund more deals than the Dodgers acquisition. The Wall Street Journal said five insurers had provided more than $10 billion in deal funding since Walter’s financial services company, Guggenheim Partners, got into the insurance business after the 2008 financial crisis.

What have been the implications for the insurers owned by Walters?

Fitch said the financial restatement increased the two insurers’ related-party loans from 2% to 40% of their portfolios, the highest exposure among life insurers it rates in North America.

Fitch, A.M. Best and S&P Global also downgraded Delaware Life’s outlook to negative, though they said the insurer maintain a high level of financial strength.

“Our capital position and liquidity remain strong, and our financial strength ratings are unchanged,” said Group 1001, the insurers’ parent company, in a statement.

What has Walter had to say about all this?

He has not publicly commented, but a TWG spokesperson stated that, “Mark Walter and TWG have always acted in good faith, and those who have done business with Mark know him as honest and straightforward. Nothing about these transactions was any different.”

State Sen. Ben Allen and former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim have split key endorsements, setting up a tight race for California’s next insurance commissioner.

Allen (D-Santa Monica), who represents the Pacific Palisades neighborhood severely damaged in the January 2025 firestorm, received the coveted endorsement last weekend of the California Democratic Party.

Kim, who led the field in June’s crowded primary, was endorsed Tuesday by the California Federation of Labor Unions, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO that represents more than 1,300 state labor unions.

Parke Skelton, a retired veteran Democratic political consultant, said that he expects the slate mailers, field volunteers and other support that each organization can provide their endorsed candidate will wash out.

“I think it’s going to be very, very close,” he said.

Two Democrats are facing off for the first time in the general election for insurance commissioner due to the open primary system instituted in 2011, in which the two top vote-getters advance regardless of party affiliation.

Kim bested Allen in the primary with 27.4% of the vote to his 19.4%, with an online campaign poll conducted for Allen in July showing that likely voters still prefer Kim by 7 points. But it also found that the general election on Nov. 3 is wide open, with most voters undecided.

Allen secured his endorsement after getting at least 60% of the vote of the party’s executive board at its meeting in San Diego. Kim needed at least two thirds of the 1,000 delegates attending the labor federation’s Oakland convention.

The campaign to succeed outgoing Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has drawn more attention than usual as insurers have withdrawn from the market and raised rates for several years. There also has been widespread dissatisfaction over how some insurers have handled January 2025 fire claims.

Allen, 48, who has served over a decade in the Legislature, has campaigned on a platform that blends cracking down on insurer wrongdoing — citing his legislative record — while trying to fix the market so that more carriers will write policies.

He said his endorsement is a “reflection of the really substantive work that I’ve been doing for years to stand up for consumers and take on tough issues and standing by the fire survivors in my district.”

Allen also is backed by California’s two U.S. senators and the leaders of the state Senate and Assembly.

Kim, 49, a member of San Francisco’s board of supervisors from 2011 to 2019, has touted her advocacy for California’s first $15 minimum wage and making the city’s community college tuition free, among other progressive causes.

The centerpiece of her campaign is a plan to create a state-backed risk pool to handle disaster claims, while making insurance more affordable and available.

“We’ll be able to tell the voters of California that 2.3 million workers are behind this campaign — working Californians that get up every morning, every day, and work really hard,” she said of the endorsement.

Allen is not without labor support, including from the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California and the California Professional Firefighters.

Lorena Gonzalez, president of the labor federation, said that several unions endorsed both candidates but Kim had lot of backing from San Francisco Bay Area unions that knew her through her work on progressive issues in San Francisco.

She is backed by Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator and progressive leader.

“I would say there was a lot of discussion about trust. I think our members and our unions trust her, and so I thought that was important,” said Gonzalez, a former Assembly member from San Diego.

Although the California Democratic Party has 10 million members, Skelton said that Kim’s support from labor, including the large Service Employees International Union and California Teachers Assn., could be more substantive.

“The Democratic Party doesn’t spend tons of money disseminating their endorsements,” he said, adding that neither candidate is likely to draw much support from Republicans.

Both candidates said they are campaigning up and down California, but Skelton said neither has enough money to mount a statewide campaign that would substantially raise their name awareness.

Allen raised $295,041 from May 17 to June 30, with $326,573 in cash on hand as of June 30, according to state records. Kim raised $260,852 over the same period with $198,925 in cash on hand as of June 30.

Although Allen can highlight that he is the party nominee in the official state voter guide, Skelton said most voters will walk into the polls not knowing either candidate.

“It’s a down-ticket race in a high turnout election,” he said, with the governor’s race and billionaire tax measure on the ballot.

That means voters could place a high regard on each candidate’s ballot designation, he said. In the primary, Kim was listed as “Attorney/Consumer Advocate,” while Allen was identified as “California State Senator.”

“If someone put a gun to my head and then said, ‘Who’s going to win?’ I think my guess is that Jane has a slight advantage,” Skelton said.

A blockbuster battle in federal court is set to open in Oakland this month, pitting Silicon Valley against attorneys for the state of California in a $1.4-trillion contest with existential stakes and potentially eye-watering payouts.

In true Hollywood fashion, the record-smashing, celebrity-studded legal drama is also a sequel.

At the heart of the fight is an essential, hotly contested question: Is social media addiction even real?

Meta’s answer, articulated across years of filings and months of litigation, is a resounding “no.”

Earlier this year, Meta lost two groundbreaking civil suits in state courts, with juries in Santa Fe, N.M., and Los Angeles concluding its products were harmful to children in verdicts rendered just hours apart. The company is appealing both cases.

The damages were relatively small: $375 million to New Mexico for enabling child predators and $4.2 million to Kaley Glenn-Mills in Los Angeles for designing features to hook kids, figures well below Sandoz’s generic drug price-fixing settlement and L.A.’s most recent dog-bite payout, respectively.

But their impact was seismic.

On Thursday, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay an additional $567 million on top of the earlier damage judgment, ruling the company was a “public nuisance.” In a July 29 earnings report, Meta said that the 2026 trials could “significantly impact” its bottom line.

Now, attorneys general in California and three other states are hoping to parlay that success into an unprecedented verdict in federal court, one that could prove far more significant — and orders of magnitude more costly — than any civil suit before.

The states allege Meta intentionally designed its products to addict kids and repeatedly lied to the public about it, telling parents and politicians its apps were safe for children while mining underage users for valuable data. The lawsuit seeks a whopping $1.4 trillion in damages from the company.

The company’s lawyers have filed a motion to block the “staggering figure” from reaching jurors when the trial opens on Aug. 18, arguing it is unprecedented.

Meta argues it can’t keep very young kids off its apps, and that there’s equal evidence showing its products are good for older adolescents as to suggest they might be harmful.

To cast doubt on the existence of social media addiction, Meta’s lawyers have zeroed in on the absence of a formal diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, often called the bible of psychiatry, or the DSM.

“Courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit — routinely refer to the DSM as an authority to inform the definition and diagnosis of mental disorders,” attorneys for Meta wrote in a motion for summary judgment in April.

“The fact that neither of the two definitive authorities for diagnosing mental disorders recognizes the existence of social media addiction — after having studied the issue and the literature — is fatal to the AGs’ core claims, especially given the lack of admissible evidence to the contrary,” the filing said.

But the relationship between the manual and the courtroom is rarely so straightforward, experts argue.

“The DSM is medical in nature … so the language is typically medical,” said Dr. Michael MacIntyre, a forensic psychologist. “The law has a very different language, so anytime the DSM is used in court that has to be translated.”

Even disorders such as schizophrenia — one of the earliest identified forms of madness, with descriptions dating back to ancient Egypt — cannot in and of themselves meet the legal criteria for insanity, which is concerned with culpability, not suffering, the expert said.

Making the legal leap without a DSM diagnosis is even harder.

“The DSM is always catching up to the times,” said Carrie Goldberg, a plaintiff’s lawyer who helped pioneer the current style of social media litigation.

At the Glenn-Mills trial in Los Angeles, Meta attorneys repeatedly hammered witnesses about the lack of a listing — at times appearing to annoy jurors and test the patience of the court.

Despite losing that bellwether, Meta continued to press the DSM argument in its filings in federal court.

Then, in late June, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez struck a major blow to the company’s strategy, saying the term’s absence from the manual was “not dispositive” and could not settle the legal question of whether the ailment exists, or if ongoing scientific debate indemnifies statements about the apps’ safety.

“The scientific literature, and defendants’ own documents use a variety of terms interchangeably, referring to ‘addictive’, ‘excessive’, ‘problematic’, or ‘compulsive’ use,” she wrote in her June order. “The Court declines to draw lines between these terms.”

The existence of social media addiction is a “material dispute of fact” — one a jury should settle, not a judge, Gonzalez wrote.

As the judge noted in her ruling, the ongoing controversy has as much to do with when and how the diagnostic gospels were compiled as the scientific validity of the ailment.

That’s because social media apps and the latest version of the DSM are almost exactly the same age. When the manual hit shelves in May 2013, only about half of Americans had a smartphone. Facebook had just acquired Instagram, Snapchat was barely two and TikTok was years in the future.

Today, more than 95% of kids ages 13 to 17 are on the apps — about a third of them “almost constantly” — according to studies by the Pew Research Center and the National Institutes of Health.

A 2025 literature review in the medical journal Current Pediatric Reports showed almost two-thirds of 11 and 12-year-olds have social media accounts — a violation of the apps’ terms of service, which Meta and others argue they are all but powerless to prevent.

Science is still catching up to the shift, experts said.

“It’s not surprising that social media addiction is not in the DSM yet,” said Dr. Jason Nagata, a professor of pediatrics at UCSF who has published extensively on behavioral problems associated with children’s use of the platforms . “The process of developing diagnoses is not a fast one.”

Compared with chemical dependencies, which have been well understood since before the first DSM was compiled in 1952, the framework for describing so-called behavioral addictions is extremely new, he and others said.

Gambling is the only behavioral addiction currently listed in the DSM. Though it first appeared in the manual’s 1980 edition as “pathological gambling,” it was only classified as a form of addiction in 2013, despite having been observed and described that way for centuries — most famously by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Dr. Lara Ray, a professor of psychology who runs an addiction lab at UCLA, contrasted the way scholars were able to identify and address addiction to new street drugs by building on centuries of scientific knowledge about older chemical dependencies.

Alcoholism has been formally studied for generations, as have opioid-use disorder and cigarette smoking, Ray explained. But no comparable infrastructure exists to probe whether social media is addictive and how that addiction might be identified and treated, nor is there government funding to support it.

“A lot of this has yet to be systematically studied and documented,” the professor said. “The science is a little behind what’s really happening.”

Meanwhile, children increasingly describe their own experience of the apps in diagnostic terms.

“It’s relatively common for teenagers to be reporting symptoms of social media addiction whether or not you believe it’s a formal diagnosis,” Nagata said. “It’s important we make it a formal entry. If a diagnosis doesn’t exist, people can’t get treated for it.”

While they wait for the next edition of psychiatry’s bible, Nagata and others support many of the structural changes sought by the states’ lawsuit, separate from money damages. The state attorneys general have called for stricter age gates to keep out preteen users, stringent caps on the time that can be spent on the apps, notification and privacy limits for adolescent accounts, and stronger safeguards to stop the exploitation of children by adult users.

Many of those same changes were ordered by Judge Bryan Biedscheid in New Mexico on Thursday.

“People see these companies as nuisances that they tolerate,” Goldberg said. “What is scary to these companies is that juries have a lot of power.”