Steven Shapiro, Q Capital’s President and CEO, will be speaking at the International Life Settlement Conference in London on May 12. The conference takes place on May 11 and 12 at the Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Sqaure in central London. Mr. Shapiro will be participating in a panel discussion on the topic of “Bank Foreclosures: A Discussion of the Foreclosure Process & Sale.” The panelist will discuss the process involved in situations where banks take over a portfolio either through the foreclosure process or otherwise and where that leaves the portfolio investors. Mr. Shapiro said, “given the current state of the life settlement market, this is an extremely timely topic to discuss.”
Archive for April, 2011
Judge Upholds Jury’s $5M Verdict Against AXA in Life Settlement Case
A federal judge upheld a $5 million verdict against AXA Equitable Life Insurance Co. yesterday in favor of Peachtree Life Settlements and its assignee Settlement Funding. In his decision, Judge Harold Baer Jr. of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan declined to overrule the jury’s finding.
On Oct. 25, a jury said that AXA must pay a $5 million death benefit on Esther Adler that the insurer claimed lacked insurable interest and was purchased fraudulently.
The judge said that the jury heard that Settlement Funding had relied on AXA’s statements that the policy’s contestability period had expired. He also said that Settlement Funding had relied on documents from AXA saying that the trust owned the policy and it was enforceable and beyond contestability.
“All of this evidence supports the jury’s finding that the Policy – and the incontestability clause – was valid and enforceable and that SF had committed no wrong in connection with the purchase, sale, repurchase or assignment of the Policy,” the decision said.
“I think the judge got it right,” said Jesus Cuza, an attorney with the law firm Greenberg Traurig in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who represented Peachtree.
“As a matter of law, the policy was beyond the two-year contestability period and the jury found that Settlement Funding and its affiliates acted in accordance with the representations made by AXA,” he said.
Jule Rousseau, an attorney with Arent Fox in New York, said in an email that despite fraud at the inception, the provider wins since AXA provided a verification-of-coverage document.
“If you have a clean settlement, you don’t have to worry about fraud in inception. The unknown fraud is a huge concern for providers and tertiary buyers. Here, they collect since they had no involvement or knowledge,” he said.
He said the decision probably will seem surprising to many others, as well as the carrier, who might have assumed that the fraud would kill the policy.
Source: http://lifesettlements.dealflow.com/wires/article.cfm?title=Judge-Upholds-Jurys-5M-Verdict-Against-AXA-Peachtree-Case&id=hsqcfbrpuhvievh
Q Capital’s President and CEO Speaks at BVZL Summit 2011 in Munich, Germany
Steven Shapiro, Q Capital’s President and CEO, recently was invited to speak at the BVZL’s Summit 2011. The conference was held on March 28 and 29 in Munich, Germany and focused on the international secondary markets for life insurance. Mr. Shapiro participated in an investor roundtable discussion on the topic of “Lessons Learned and Future Strategy.” The BVZL is the leading secondary life insurance markets trade asociation in Europe, focused on developing standards for transparency and comparability for investors in this asset class. Q Capital is a member of the BVZL.