Lindberg Owes Penalties for Failing to Report Foreign Accounts, IRS Says in New Filing

The legal and financial troubles for former North Carolina insurance executive Greg Lindberg have not gone away after he won a new trial on bribery charges.

This week, the U.S. Treasury filed a complaint in federal court, charging that Lindberg failed to report to the Internal Revenue Service his interest in and authority over several foreign bank accounts, from 2012 to 2015. He now owes more $45,300 in penalties, the complaint reads.

The filing notes that Lindberg, who was convicted in 2020 of attempting to bribe the North Carolina insurance commissioner in return for lenient regulation of his insurance companies, owns Academy Association Inc., an “S” corporation with foreign bank accounts. The company timely filed reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, or FBARs, with the IRS, but Lindberg did not, the government said.

Lindberg had signing authority on Academy bank accounts in Bermuda and Malta, but checked “no” on tax forms questions about that, the complaint alleges. In 2017, the IRS informed Lindberg that it was examining his tax return for 2015, and he then filed FBARs for several years.

But he still owed penalties for the late filings. The government in 2020 demanded payment but heard nothing from the executive, the complaint notes. The IRS is now asking for a judgment from the U.S. District Court in North Carolina, requiring Lindberg to pay up.

Lindberg had served 21 months in prison after his conviction on charges of attempting to bribe Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey with more than $500,000 in campaign contributions. Causey recorded some of the conversations with Lindberg and associates. But a judge in July ordered a new trial, saying the instructions to the jury, that preferential regulation of Lindberg’s companies was to be considered an official act by Causey’s office, were inappropriate.

Lindberg is now out of prison, awaiting a new trial in 2023. But the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in August charged that Lindberg and an associate had misappropriated some $75 million from his insurance companies. A Lindberg spokeswoman has said that the SEC is “piling on,” that the executive had provided full disclosure of his financial records, and that no one was harmed.