Greg Lindberg appeals judgment awarding $166M to Dutch insurer

Troubled financier Greg Lindberg is appealing a $166 million award to a Dutch insurer in a dispute over solvency capital ratios.

Last month, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina ordered Lindberg to pay the money to Conservatrix N.V., a Dutch life insurance company, and Trier Holding B.V., of which Lindberg was the ultimate shareholder.

The dispute began when Trier’s solvency capital ratio fell below 100 in August 2019, court documents say. European and Dutch regulations require insurers to maintain a solvency capital ratio of at least 100.

Trier committed to maintaining a solvency capital ratio of 135 at Conservatrix in March 2019, court documents say. In December 2019, Conservatrix initiated arbitration in a bid to force Trier to return to the solvency capital ratio.

The Netherlands Arbitration Institute sided with Conservatrix in January 2020, ordering Trier to restore the solvency capital to 100 within 60 days or pay Conservatrix $163.93 million, plus arbitration and legal fees. Trier did not pay.

By then, Lindberg was ensnared in a web of civil and criminal problems.

Other Lindberg cases

Lindberg is appealing the Conservatrix award to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a separate $524 million judgment against him in August.

In that case, Universal Life Insurance Co. reached a 2017 deal with Lindberg’s then-insurance company, Private Bankers Life and Annuity, to reinsure a block of business. By February 2020, the deal had gone bad.

ULICO "initiated arbitration proceedings against PBLA,” court documents say, and asserted that Lindberg “drained over $524 million cash-equivalent assets . . . from the [ULICO] trust account and replaced them with assets that do not conform.”

An arbitral panel awarded judgment to ULICO, finding PBLA at fault and ordering it “to pay [ULICO] $524,009,051.26 within ten days of the entry of the award.” The award was confirmed by a final judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Lindberg also awaits sentencing on a second criminal bribery conviction and also faces separate fraud charges.

Convicted in 2020 on bribery and fraud charges, along with associate John Gray, Lindberg served 633 days behind bars before the conviction was vacated due to improper jury instructions. Lindberg and Gray were convicted a second time in May and face 30 years in prison.

Prosecutors say Lindberg and Gray gave, offered, and promised North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey millions of dollars in campaign contributions and other things of value in exchange for the removal of his senior deputy commissioner, who was responsible for overseeing the regulation and the periodic examination of Lindberg’s Global Bankers Insurance Group.

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InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.