SEC investor bulletin on settlement income streams, a mixed bag

Earlier this month the SEC issued an investor bulletin entitled " Pension or Settlement Income Streams, What you need to know before buying or selling them." While it is not unusual for the SEC or FINRA to provide alerts to the general public on certain types of investments or issues which they feel might be harmful to investors, the nature of this particular alert cuts across, and seems to jumble together, two very distinct issues and transactions. 

SEC Investor bulletin on Settlement Income Streams.

The first is the sale of structured settlement income streams by court settlement beneficiaries who receive periodic payments as a result of a verdict or settlement for personal injury that occurred at some time in the past. While this is a practice that is still somewhat controversial in settlement profession circles, the law and process governing this process is covered under IRC section 5891 and is also supervised under state law in the 47 states which have adopted the model legislation as to process. 

The second side is a bit more relevant in my opinion to investors, that being the emerging market for purchasing secondary market annuity products, or settlement income streams. These factored income streams, which until recently were almost exclusively packaged into pools and sold as high yielding securities to institutional buyers is now being offered to private investors through direct purchase options. This area I can see the SEC wanting individuals to be cautious and inform themselves as to the pricing, risks and rewards of these programs, but in cases of institutional buyers the warnings on this sort of transaction make no sense what so ever.

I asked Matt Bracy, immediate past President of NASP to join us in studio to discuss this investor alert and the implications for the factoring profession. I also have a follow up conversation with Matt looking at the implications for the structured settlement profession as well. This is a four part commentary, today is part one, so watch for our next three installments over the next few days.

Wahlstrom announces new media partnership for mass tort lawyers, Litigation War Room

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: HEALY BAUMGARDNER-NARDONE

                   800-321-1687 / Healy@MonaLisaCommunications.com

MONA LISA COMMUNICATIONS AND THE LEGAL BROADCAST NETWORK JOIN FORCES TO LAUNCH LITIGATION WAR ROOM – 

THE NATION'S LEADING & UNPRECEDENTED MASS TORT & TRIAL LAWYER MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION FIRM

Wheeling, WV / Scottsdale, AZ (May 1, 2013) - Today, Mona Lisa Communications (www.monalisacommunications.com) and Legal Broadcast Network (www.legalbroadcastnetwork.com) announced their joint venture - The Litigation War Room (www.litigationwarroom.com) - the nation’s premiere and unprecedented mass tort marketing and public relations firm. The Litigation War Room is a 24/7 mass tort marketing, public relations and crisis communications agency that offers turn-key integrated marketing and communications services including commercial production, advertising, new media, digital and traditional media relations services, among others.

"The Litigation War Room is the combined product of both my partner's and my personal experiences in the litigation world - high-stakes and crisis communications management for trial lawyers and high-profile cases combined with unparalleled production and advertising services," said Healy Baumgardner-Nardone, Co-Founder & Owner of The Litigation War Room. "Hands down, with the combination of experience The Litigation War Room offers, no other marketing or public relations firm is positioned to offer nor compete with our expertise."

The Litigation War Room will be accessible to its mass tort firms and trial lawyer clients on a 24/7 basis, not only promising the basic advertising and TV production services for such cases, but doing so in an unmatched, high-end production and multi-platform manner that encompasses proprietary lead generation and statistical measurement services.

"We become the Media War Room for both high profile single event cases as well as national mass tort litigation," said Mark Wahlstrom, Co-Owner and Co-Founder of the Litigation War Room. "We become a 24/7 public relations and marketing arm in conjunction with the case at hand, managing all aspects of message placement and control.  There's a reason this has never been done before, which is simply because until now, no other firm could conceive, let alone execute The Litigation War Room's concept and services which cover traditional media, new media and broadcast quality media production."

To learn more about The Litigation War Room, please visit  www.litigationwarroom.com. Consultations are granted upon a qualification basis only.

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About Healy E. Baumgardner-Nardone:

A leading strategic communications advisor, public relations and advertising executive, Healy E. Baumgardner-Nardone has served in high-profile positions in the public and private sectors worldwide encompassing healthcare, energy, gaming, litigation, media relations and national security arenas, among others. Healy has served as a Senior Press Official at The White House, as Press Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and as a Deputy Communications Director for Mayor Rudy Giuliani as well as a strategic communications professional and chief spokesperson for Fortune 500, energy industry and start up companies, including spearheading financial communications initiatives on Wall Street and other markets. Healy obtains extensive experience advising companies from multi-national to small business operations on comprehensive communications, public relations, advertising and marketing initiatives. She has worked with foreign heads of state, senior staffs, governments, official delegations and media spanning every continent. Healy's on-the-record experience includes local, regional, national, international and trade print, television, radio and internet mediums [NBC, ABC, MSNBC, MSN Money, CNBC, NPR, Bloomberg, FOX News, CNN, CNN Money, Associated Press, Dow Jones, Reuters, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, USA Today, Politico, NY Post, NY Daily News, International Herald Tribune, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Satellite Finance, Houston Chronicle, Tehran Times, Iranian Times, Financial Times, Detroit Free Press, Atlanta Journal Constitution, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dispatch Online (South Africa), Chicago Tribune, trade publications (Platts, Inside Energy), Financial Express (India), Economic Times (India), Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), Lloyds (London), Forbes, Conde Nast] and she maintains extensive media relationships as both a source and advisor. A Cum Laude graduate of West Virginia University (WVU) in journalism (public relations) and political science, Healy is recognized as one of the best in the business with proven results that enhance business objectives.

About Mark Wahlstrom:

Mark Wahlstrom is Chairman and CEO of Sequence Media Group and the founder of The Legal Broadcast Network, LLC. He also is the President of Wahlstrom & Associates and for over 30 years considered one of the nations premier settlement consulting and mass tort administration firms. His extensive background in litigation consulting as well as his visionary reputation in new media, marketing and the use of HD online video broadcasting has helped him construct one of the most innovative online broadcasting platforms designed for lawyers throughout the country. His widely read and viewed commentaries on the branding of law firms on the internet and in social media is considered a must read for new media experts nationally. Mark came to media only after 25 years working hand in hand with the leading trial lawyers nationally, devising tactics and settlement strategies through his consulting firm and now extends that knowledge to his media platform. A leader in innovative solutions for mass tort lawyers and case administration coupled with his extensive knowledge of Mass Torts and Media brings a unique skill set and depth of experience unmatched by other communication firms working in the legal marketplace. Mark will be heading up the Litigation War Room's new media strategic consulting and mass tort liaison initiatives.

Single claimant Qualified Settlement Funds (QSF), fools gold for plaintiff settlement planners

In this weeks edition of Speaking of Settlements I follow up on my previous commentary where I discussed some of my concerns regarding an industry push to curtail the markets available to underwrite single claimant qualified settlement funds. In the prior commentary I took to task the defense brokers and our profession's unfortunate tendency to force market changes on pro-plaintiff products and access to professionals with out a open and transparent dialogue on the consequences of those actions.

Single claimant QSF, Fools Gold for plaintiff attorneys

This week I discuss the often careless, and frequently dishonest, method's certain plaintiff experts have used to try and justify the use of a single claimant case to settle a personal injury matter, when often the only true motivation for the QSF is simply taking control of the structured settlement funding process away from the defendant. The plaintiff experts who push the single claimant settlement fund strategy as an effective planning tool are selling "fools gold" to their attorney clients and thanks to recent changes at the life markets, now run the risk of profound professional embarrassment by continuing this tactic.

As someone who has worked exclusively as a plaintiff settlement expert for over 25 years now, I have a personal understanding of why plaintiff brokers and trial lawyers feel so aggrieved about the process of structured settlements and what they frequently view as excessive defense control and interference in the process. I get it, we have all been strong armed out of cases and our clients have been forced into life markets and structures by brokers who they never chose to work with. However, the answer to that process should not be the careless and casual use of the IRC 468B qualified settlement fund process so as to add additional expense, process and potential IRS audit scrutiny to the settlement procedure simply so they don't have to split a commission with a defense broker. 

As I mention in this weeks commentary, there is plenty of blame to go around for the past, but we can't continue to live in the past, we need to move forward. However, the result of this over reach by plaintiff brokers on single claimant cases has now led to a situation where there are no life companies that will underwrite a structure on a single claimant case, forcing brokers to look at alternative products or approaches, or to go back to their clients and explain how their time and funds on setting up a QSF were wasted.

As I discussed last week, the purpose of a Qualified Settlement Fund should be to administer a multi-claimant case in cost effective and compliant fashion so as to provide the best planning option to MULTIPLE claimants. Single claimant cases should be legal but used on truly exceptional cases, not as a short cut to close defendants out of the process. There is little to be gained by past practices on BOTH sides of this issue and eventually there needs to be a set of industry standards developed and agreed to by all stakeholders or we run the risk of further shrinking our profession in both numbers of brokers, life markets and premium written.