General America policyholders to get payments
General America policyholders to get payments — More than 300,000 current and former policyholders of General American Life Insurance Co. will be receiving a combined $75 million in distribution payments between now and early December, the Missouri Department of Insurance said Tuesday.
The department took over the life insurer when it failed in 1999. The business was sold to MetLife for $1.2 billion, and the money distributed to policyholders. After the failure, state regulators also initiated lawsuits against parties involved in the 1999 failure.
Four suits were settled, including a $100 million settlement last year by Goldman Sachs. In May, the state launched a $3 billion lawsuit against Richard Liddy, General American’s former CEO, and Dewey & LeBoeuf, a law firm that represented the insurer. Including the most recent distribution, the department has overseen $1.5 billion in such disbursements.
Saab sale falls through — General Motors Co.’s efforts to sell its Saab subsidiary have run afoul, with the buyer terminating the deal, the automaker announced Tuesday. GM confirmed that the proposed sale of its Saab subsidiary to Koenigsegg Group AB has been terminated "at the discretion of the buyer electronic check payday advance."
Crib fatalities spur quicker action — The head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission promised swift action to get dangerous products off the market, after acknowledging Tuesday that it didn’t move quickly enough on a record recall of more than 2 million cribs linked to four deaths. "We were not advancing this case as quickly as possible," Chairman Inez Tenenbaum said. CPSC said the recall involved 1.2 million cribs in the U.S. and 1 million in Canada, where Stork is based. The cribs date back to 1993, and nearly 150,000 carry the Fisher-Price logo.
Sprint finishes Virgin Mobile purchase — Sprint Nextel Corp. completed on Tuesday its $483 million acquisition of Virgin Mobile USA. Sprint Nextel already owned 13.1 percent of Virgin Mobile, which uses Sprint’s network to offer service and has 5.2 million subscribers.
From staff and wire reports
Filed under: online by Fred