Senior Health Ins. Co. of Pa. v. Beechwood Re Ltd.

345 F. Supp. 3d 515
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Illinois
DecidedDecember 6, 2018
Docket18-cv-6658 (JSR)
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 345 F. Supp. 3d 515 (Senior Health Ins. Co. of Pa. v. Beechwood Re Ltd.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Senior Health Ins. Co. of Pa. v. Beechwood Re Ltd., 345 F. Supp. 3d 515 (S.D. Ill. 2018).

Opinion

JED S. RAKOFF, U.S.D.J.

After discovering that it had invested $320 million with the affiliates of a failed Ponzi scheme, plaintiff Senior Health Insurance Company of Pennsylvania ("SHIP") brought a 13-count complaint against defendants Beechwood Re Ltd., B Asset Manager, L.P., Beechwood Bermuda International, Ltd., Beechwood Re Investments, LLC a/k/a Beechwood Re Investors, LLC, Illumin Capital Management, LP, Moshe M. Feuer a/k/a Mark Feuer, Scott A. Taylor, David I. Levy, Dhruv Narain, and John Does 1-10. Now before the Court is the partial motion of most of the defendants1 to dismiss SHIP's complaint. For the reasons discussed below, and as explained in more detail herein, defendants' motion is granted in part and denied in part.

Background

In evaluating defendants' partial motion to dismiss, the following allegations are taken as true: SHIP is an insurance company that provides long-term care coverage. Complaint ¶ 5 ("Compl."), ECF No. 1. In 2003, SHIP stopped writing new business and developed a "run-off strategy" with the Pennsylvania Insurance Department. Id. ¶ 40. Although SHIP is technically a for-profit entity, it is managed only for its policyholders' benefit, and any assets remaining after the satisfaction of SHIP's policies and obligations are paid out to charities that focus on senior health issues. Id. ¶ 41

Of central importance to this action is non-party Platinum Partners, L.P., a Manhattan-based hedge fund founded by non-parties Mark Nordlicht, Murray Huberfeld, and David Bodner. Id. ¶ 15. For over a decade, Platinum falsely inflated the reports of its performance, and as of 2012, the hedge fund was "suffering severe liquidity problems and needed constant cash infusions to prop up its funds and support redemptions." Id. ¶¶ 16-17. To meet these shortfalls, Platinum partnered with defendants Mark Feuer, Scott Taylor, and David Levy (Huberfeld's nephew) to form defendant Beechwood Re and its affiliates. Id. ¶ 17. The purpose of creating Beechwood Re was to "present the false appearance of being unrelated to Nordlicht, Huberfeld, or Bodner in order [to] attract institutional investors that Platinum itself could not attract directly." Id. ¶ 48.2

*521In 2013, SHIP was introduced to Beechwood Re, and in 2014 and 2015, SHIP's CEO and CFO met with Feuer, Taylor, and Levy to discuss SHIP's investment challenges. Id. ¶ 45. Feuer, Taylor, and Levy advised that Beechwood Re would not be able to provide reinsurance to SHIP, but that Beechwood Re could provide SHIP with access to the same investments that Beechwood Re used for policies that it reinsured. Id. Over the course of several meetings and presentations, defendants pitched SHIP on Beechwood's record of outperformance and conservative investment strategy. They "recommended a strategy of investing in assets that were highly collateralized and well protected," and they "represented to SHIP that the investments were over-secured by collateral that Beechwood could seize in the event that a loan or other investment was not repaid, which would enable Beechwood to recover the value of any investment." Id. ¶ 70.

In 2014 and 2015, SHIP invested $270 million through three Investment Management Agreements (IMAs), one with defendant Beechwood Re, id. ¶ 98, one with defendant Beechwood Bermuda International, Ltd. ("BBIL"), id. ¶ 82, and one with defendants B Asset Manager, LP ("BAM") and Beechwood Re Investors, LLC ("BRILLC"), id. ¶¶ 114, 118. Each of these IMAs had the same basic structure: the IMAs guaranteed SHIP a 5.85% annual return, with the defendants required to make up any shortfall. Id. ¶¶ 86, 102, 118. Any returns in excess of 5.85% would go to defendants as a performance fee. Id. ¶¶ 88, 104, 119.

Rather than investing in highly collateralized credit instruments, defendants almost immediately began moving SHIP's assets through a series of complicated transactions that ultimately served to enrich Platinum and Beechwood. Two weeks after SHIP made its investment with BAM, for example, BAM used SHIP funds to acquire an unsecured $35,500,000 note issued by an entity owned by one of Platinum's funds. Id. ¶ 141. Although the note purchase agreement had a collateralization requirement, this requirement was deferred nine times in three months, and when collateral was ultimately posted, it was a small amount that "simultaneously served as collateral for the debt to be collected under two other defaulted investments in which Beechwood had invested SHIP policy reserves." Id. ¶ 144.

The complaint describes several similar transactions that funded Platinum and Beechwood at SHIP's expense. In February 2015, BBIL wired BRILLC $50 million of SHIP assets to fund a 6% note, but to date BRILLC has repaid neither interest nor principal. Id. ¶¶ 157, 160, 162. And between 2015 and 2016, defendants used SHIP's assets to buy themselves out of a risky loan to an energy company. Id. ¶ 146. In doing so, defendants - particularly defendant Dhruv Narain,3 who was then BAM's CIO - also renegotiated the loan to subordinate SHIP's interest to that of other *522Beechwood entities. Id. ¶¶ 151-53. Finally, the most egregious example - also allegedly orchestrated by Narain - involved a complicated series of transactions in which SHIP was made to repeatedly resell itself an interest in a convertible note that one Platinum entity held in another Platinum entity. Id. ¶¶ 166-90. The result is that SHIP now has $70 million tied up in an illiquid investment of questionable value. Id. ¶ 195.

While defendants were using SHIP's assets to fund themselves, they were also paying themselves tens of millions of dollars of performance fees out of SHIP's accounts. Id. ¶¶ 89, 105, 121. SHIP alleges that defendants justified these fees by falsely overstating the value of SHIP's assets under management. Id. ¶ 132. In particular, defendants paid advisors and consultants to submit "reports that contained inflated, and in some cases entirely falsified, valuations that purported to show that the Platinum-related investments were performing well." Id. As a specific example, SHIP points to an April 9, 2015 Duff & Phelps report that Elliot Feit at Beechwood emailed SHIP's then-CFO on April 20, 2015. Id. ¶ 136; ECF No. 63, Ex. G. SHIP alleges that this report significantly overstated the value of certain Platinum-related assets that Beechwood had purchased with SHIP funds. Compl. ¶ 136.

On July 25, 2016, the Wall Street Journal published an article about Beechwood's ties to Platinum. Id. ¶ 197. This was the first time that SHIP became aware of the connection, and Beechwood sent a letter the next day to SHIP's CEO, in which Beechwood reassured SHIP there was "no reason to believe that either Beechwood or any of [SHIP's] related portfolios suffered financial harm" from investments involving Platinum. Id. ¶ 198. Beechwood "continued to tout its 'appropriate risk management' and 'strong safeguards' for SHIP's investments," and it "represented to SHIP that it was in the process of, and was capable of, severing all ties with Platinum." Id. Beechwood continued to withdraw millions in fees from SHIP's accounts. Id. ¶ 199.

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345 F. Supp. 3d 515, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/senior-health-ins-co-of-pa-v-beechwood-re-ltd-ilsd-2018.