North Carolina Judge Orders Lindberg to Give Up Control of Firms to Repay Insurers

A North Carolina court docket has ordered jailed insurance coverage and enterprise entrepreneur Greg Lindberg to relinquish management of a whole lot of his corporations in a plan to salvage 4 of his insurance coverage corporations.

The decide in Wake County discovered that Lindberg dedicated fraud and did not abide by a 2019 settlement after the North Carolina Division of Insurance coverage took management of the insurers, the Wall Road Journal and different information shops have reported.

State Insurance coverage Commissioner Mike Causey mentioned the ruling is a giant win for policyholders. The division “will proceed to work to carry Mr. Lindberg to his guarantees and get the policyholders of those corporations full entry to their insurance policies,” he mentioned, in keeping with the Journal.

Lindberg is now serving a seven-year sentence in federal jail after being convicted of trying to bribe Causey in trade for favorable remedy for his insurance coverage corporations.

Lindberg had struck an settlement with a earlier commissioner to permit him to take a position as a lot as 40% of the carriers’ belongings into his affiliated corporations. Causey, who took workplace in 2017, deemed the funding plan to be too dangerous. Lindberg tried to affect Causey’s resolution, however the commissioner alerted authorities and recorded conversations with Lindberg, in keeping with prosecutors.

Lindberg has denied the fees however was convicted in 2020.

The case additionally ensnared a former North Carolina Congressman, Rep. Robin Hayes, who pleaded responsible in 2019 and was pardoned by former President Donald Trump simply days earlier than Trump left workplace in 2021.

On Wednesday, Lindberg misplaced management of most of his far-flung enterprise enterprises. North Carolina Choose Graham Shirley mentioned Lindberg had deceived and defrauded the insurance coverage corporations by investing much more than 40% of their belongings in his different operations. After the state took management of the insurers below a 2019 settlement, Lindberg continued to withdraw extra from the insurers than the stipulations allowed. His different operations had obtained hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in loans from the insurance coverage corporations however didn’t flip over management of his working corporations as known as for within the settlement, the decide mentioned.

Most of Lindberg’s companies will now be put below management of a particular overseer board, which may have the authority to promote the businesses to repay the insurers cash they had been owed, which could possibly be as a lot as $1.25 billion, the decide’s order notes.

The insurance coverage corporations concerned are Southland Nationwide Insurance coverage Corp., Bankers Life Insurance coverage Co., Colorado Bankers Life Insurance coverage Co. and Southland Nationwide Reinsurance Corp., in keeping with information studies. A lot of Lindberg’s affiliated corporations had been below the title Eli World, which has since modified its moniker to World Development Holdings.

The ruling is the newest spherical of unhealthy information for the entrepreneur, who as soon as managed a whole lot of small and mid-sized companies, together with eye-care chains and software program corporations. Earlier this month, a federal decide ordered Lindberg to repay $524 million to a Puerto Rico insurance coverage firm whose belongings had been invested with a Bermuda-based insurer that has since collapsed, the Journal reported.

Lindberg has mentioned among the belongings had been already nugatory earlier than the investments had been made.

High picture: Lindberg (Related Press)

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