by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
The structured settlement secondary market currently poses significant financial and reputation risk for participants in the unregulated market segment where there is no licensing and no regulator of its sales practices.
Despite the current lack of regulation, The Consumer Financial Protecton Board (CFPB) continues to plug away at JG Wentworth "to determine if their business of purchasing structured settlement and annuitant payments, or any ancillary aspects of that business, violate federal consumer financial law" [Download 201602_cfpb_decision-and-order-on-petition-by-jg-wentworth-llc-to-modify-or-set-aside-civil-investigative-demand]. JG Wentworth, a publicly traded company, which has been fighting for its life in the investment markets, with a stock price in Bingo number range, continues to fight CFPB on jurisdiction. The outcome of JG Wentworth's fight could have a negative impact other settlement purchasers.
Underwriters of insurance for settlement purchasers (and anyone tied to them) need to take a closer look at what has been going on to properly assess their exposures.
Predictions
- Hedge funds and banks tied and investors owning, backing or funding structured settlement factoring companies who engaged in illegal activity may themselves be investigated and targeted in litigation
- Structured Settlement Buyers (Cash Now companies) may be prosecuted for providing unlicensed financial advice to sellers and to investors in structured settlement payments rights in forum shopped cases that did not comply with the structured settlement transfer act.
- Retirees who bought shady deals may be huge casualties in the fallout from vacated structured settlement transfer orders. There will be an ethical dilemma on the solution pitting the vulnerable, cognitively impaired and/or disabled, the original beneficiary of the original structured settlement payments, against the vulnerable retirees who were bamboozled by financial advisors (or settlement purchasers improperly acting as financial advisers) into buying them.
- The lack of adequate insurance may be a huge problem for consumers and investors seeking redress.
- A money trail will lead to certain insurance companies and other American and foreign financial institutions who financed or bought structured settlement payments rights in which disabled, vulnerable and/or cognitively impaired American consumers who got shafted in high discount rate deals that were not in American consumers best interest.
- Lawyers who may be fined and/or disbarred for knowingly and repeatedly submitting structured settlement transfer petitions that did not comply with structured settlement protection statutes.
- Judges who repeatedly and negligently did not perform their duties in protecting disabled, vulnerable and/or cognitively impaired Americans by approving structured settlement factoring transactions not in the best interest of the disabled, vulnerable and/or cognitively impaired Americans, will take a big hit.
- More cases of forgery of judges' on structured settlement transfer documents will be uncovered. Two forgery cases involving a lawyer or employee of a law firm, each involving more than 100 forgeries have arisen in roughly the same "longitude', within the similar time frame.
- It will be revealed that multiple cash for structured settlement transactions were approved by a Florida judge in a short time frame involving forum shopping and an imposter annuitant!
- An investment Ponzi scheme involving participants in the structured settlement secondary market will come to the fore.