Former insurance executive Greg Lindberg, now awaiting sentencing in a North Carolina bribery conviction, and his companies must pay almost $167 million to an insolvent life insurance company in the Netherlands, a federal judge decided last week.
“There is nothing to indicate the arbitral proceedings and subsequent court proceedings upholding the award were not fair,” U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles wrote in her Aug. 8 opinion. “The underlying circumstances – providing financial support to an insurance company in liquidation by persons obligated to provide that support – also augur against a stay.”
An Dutch arbitration proceeding in 2020 ordered Lindberg and his investment company and two of his other companies to pay millions to maintain a minimum solvency capital ratio in Conservatrix N.V., a life insurer in which Lindberg previously held an ownership stake. Dutch courts, including the country’s Supreme Court, upheld the arbitration award.
Still, Lindberg and companies did not comply, the U.S. court said.
Without the promised funding from Lindberg, the Dutch insurer was placed into liquidation proceedings. The company and its conservators in 2023 then filed an action in federal court in North Carolina, hoping to enforce the judgment under the rules of the Federal Arbitration Act or state law.
Lindberg’s attorneys had sent a letter to the chairman of the Netherlands arbitration tribunal, contending that new evidence was available. But Lindberg did not ask for arbitration to be resumed or the award to be set aside.
Judge Eagles, in the Middle District of North Carolina, found that the Federal Arbitration Act requires confirmation of an award, as specified in an international convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. A 1998 federal court ruling established that a party must first make application in the originating country to have the award set aside.
Even assuming the U.S. court now has discretion to step in, “the general goal of arbitration – expeditious resolution of disputes – is not served by adjournment (of the award), especially when the respondents have had years to ask the arbitral panel to reopen the proceedings but have not done so.”
The court did not explain how Lindberg and his companies, Trier Holding B.V.; Netherlands Insurance Holdings Inc., and NIH Capital LLC, might be able to pay the award. Lindberg was convicted in May of attempting to bribe North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey in 2018, in return for more favorable treatment of Lindberg’s life insurance companies. It was the second trial, after an appeals court overturned the first conviction, deciding that instructions to the initial jury had been inappropriate.
Lindberg is now awaiting sentencing. Prosecutors have asked the federal court to order forfeiture of bank accounts, and Lindberg’s attorneys in late July objected, court records show.
Lindberg also faces civil lawsuits over his embattled former insurance companies. The North Carolina Supreme Court in late May this year agreed to hear a case in which one of Lindberg’s former companies is attempting to collect $600 million from him.
Related Lindberg News: Lindberg Convicted in Second Trial
NC Appeals Court Gives Green Light to Liquidation of Lindberg Insurers
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