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The Los Angeles Dodgers being in a 2-0 NLCS hole isn’t Mark Walter’s only worry right now.
The Dodgers’ controlling owner and chairman was hit with a lawsuit that alleged he and two of his insurers, Clear Spring and Gainbridge, sold annuities based on misrepresentations and false promises.
The lawsuit was filed on Monday by Los Angeles retiree Rick Phillips, who is requesting that he and other Clear Spring and Gainbridge policyholders either gets release from their annuity contracts without penalty or, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Heather Gillers, “reimbursed for the difference between what they paid and the cheaper price the companies might have had to accept had they been upfront about the extent of their affiliated investments.”
A 76-year-old Florida resident named Robert Kalinsky filed a separate lawsuit against Clear Spring and Delaware Life (one of Walter’s other insurance companies) on Wednesday, alleging that they misrepresented the extent of their affiliated assets in his policy.
Ira Rosner, a Delaware resident, filed a lawsuit last month, which meant that three have piled up against Walter and his companies over the past six weeks.
A spokesman for Group 1001, the insurers’ parent company, released a statment that read, “No court has ruled that Group 1001 Insurance or Delaware Life Insurance Company did anything wrong, and we intend to defend the case vigorously, consistent with our long track record of serving policyholders with integrity.”
Walter sold his controlling stake in the Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA franchise over the summer for $12.6 billion. The timing of this sale raised eyebrows, given that Walter’s financial empire was under scrutiny from the SEC over whether billions of dollars in funds from his affiliated insurance companies were properly disclosed.
Walter and his companies have denied any wrongdoing and have not been charged for a crime. There is also nothing to directly suggest that the SEC’s findings were tied to Walter’s Lakers sale.
