Well my, my ain’t we got fun? The hinky company (and by that I mean questionable) that saved Donald Trump’s bacon with a last-minute $175 million court bond relied on its own parent company to insure itself, and this has raised concerns about how the company was playing with its finances, the Daily Beast reports.
Now, however, details are trickling out about the parent company—especially since it’s based in the Cayman Islands, land of tax havens, and now the concerns are gathering steam.
The Daily Beast interviewed former industry regulators and investigators, all of whom said that because Knight Specialty Insurance Company is being financially backed by a firm based in the Cayman Islands, this should definitely raise concerns at the New York Attorney General’s office since this is a common practice for some companies that organize in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes and minimize visibility into its business practices, avoid stricter U.S. regulations, and make liability harder if things go sideways.
And there could be additional fun to be had if New York Attorney General Letitia James has to fight the company for the money Trump currently owes for committing bank fraud.
“This just stinks to high heaven,” said Dave Jones, who served as california’s insurance commissioner for seven years until 2018 and was the overseer of the nation’s largest insurance market.
“Taken in its totality, this dog does not hunt. Along every step of the way, this purported bond is problematic. It’s just one issue after another that calls into question whether this bond could ever possibly satisfy the judgment,” said Jones, who’s now the director of the Climate Risk Initiative at University of California Berkeley.
There is, according to the former regulators, a potential worst-case scenario: Trump loses his bank fraud case on appeal and refuses to pay, the insurance company isn’t able to pony up the money, James hits a stumbling block chasing after a second company that didn’t explicitly promise to pay the court judgment, all the time while being based in a scarcely-regulated foreign jurisdiction in the Caribbean.
“The risk here is the company will not have the liquidity to pay on the bond when demanded, and the beneficiary of this bond, the New York AG, may not have a direct claim against the reinsurer,” said former New York Department of Financial Services superintendent Maria Vullo. “That the reinsurer is in the Cayman Islands compounds this issue as it is a non-U.S. jurisdiction, which makes collection very difficult.”
Are we having fun yet?
On top of that, the deal that spared Trump’s wattled neck the embarrassment of having James start acquiring his properties is every bit as complicated as the most modern intersection of finance and legal issues are nowadays. It’s a maze that’s perfectly designed to mire the wheels of justice and drive lawyers nuts.
And of course, this situation is even more complicated by the fact that Trump whose potentially doomed properties are dotted all over the U.S. and were once owned by New York City entities (otherwise known as shell companies), which have all conveniently relocated to MAGAland, otherwise known as Florida.
If you really want a good idea of all the shenanigans that are going on, I suggest you refer to the Daily Beast story. It offers more information than I can give in a small space.
But I will tell you, this is really a loo-loo.
Too bad Haiti can’t invade Cayman Islands… and nationalize banks🤔😬👀😂. The other pile of poop 💩 that hides $$ is thinking of lifting sanctions on Russia. USA should have bombed their azz more during ww2.
I know it’s a pipe dream but I really believe that laundering money in these shell companies shouldn’t be allowed. It should be illegal. But Wall Street would just laugh at me.
Not even Haiti could manage to successfully invade the Cayman Islands. Once upon a time, maybe (back when Haiti was able to not just invade but fully control the Dominican Republic from the 1820s to the mid-1840s) but the current Haitian military has its hands full just keeping Haiti from completely collapsing into a fallen state.
And, of course there is the fact that the UK might have some issues with an invasion of THEIR territory by any country. While the Cayman Islands does have a local military force (the Cayman Islands Regiment), that’s largely a force with duties similar to National Guardsmen here in the States. If any country attempted to invade the Caymans, the UK would respond just as it did in the Falklands conflict.
Also, it would be more likely that an invasion would come from either Cuba or Jamaica since those countries are far closer to the Caymans than Haiti. Haiti, at its closest point, is still roughly 350 miles away from the easternmost of the Cayman Islands. Both Jamaica and Cuba are roughly 130 miles away from their closest points to the Caymans.
The rich make the rules to protect themselves and punish the rest of us. This is just another example.
the usual corrupt loopholes….
I thought knight’s filing said that Trump was responsible for the bond, not them. I would think that would end it there.