Protected Cell Companies: Firewalls Revisited
Editor’s Note: The following was written by John J. O’Brien JD, CLU, CPCU. He may be reached at lionsthree@aol.com. This article is a follow-up to his CICR May 2004 article, "Segregated Cell Captives: Are Firewalls Fireproof?" [LINK]
Segregated portfolio insurance programs have garnered widespread acceptance within the alternative risk community. Also known as "segregated portfolio companies (SPCs)" or "protected cell companies (PCCs)," they have traditionally been single entities made up of individual, unincorporated cells. Core capital is provided by the owners, and in addition, each cell has its own capital provided by the client using that cell.
Participation of the client is formalized through a shareholder’s agreement. Uniformly, the legislation providing for the formation of SPCs and PCCs provides that the assets of one cell are protected from the creditors of another. The revenue stream, assets, and liabilities of each cell are kept separate and apart from all other cells so that no cell is affected by the business or operations of another or of the SPC or PCC itself. The divisions separating the cells are commonly referred to as “firewalls” in the United States, or as “ring circles” in Europe. Each cell is identified by a unique name—sometimes a number.
Why People Like Them. These arrangements are promoted as an easy and cost-effective way for small organizations, wealthy individuals, agents or brokers, and nonprofits to avail themselves of the benefits offered through participating in risk-sharing profits. A major financial value is because entry is available through a shareholders’ or participation agreement without the need for formation of a new corporation. These facilities are extensively employed, particularly in Bermuda in estate planning, and asset protection sometimes involving high-value life insurance self-managed programs intended to be free of estate taxes. The participation agreement provides that disputes will be resolved pursuant to the law where the SPC or PCC is established and by the courts there.
Segregated cells originated in Guernsey with the Protected Cell Companies Ordinance 1997, and other domiciles have enacted similar laws. The Guernsey Act has had a recent and very interesting amendment that provides for incorporation of the individual cells. It amended its segregated cell legislation to provide for incorporating segregated cells and also provided that existing non-incorporated cells can convert to the corporate cell form. Other domiciles have or are considering amending their statutes to provide for incorporated segregated cells. Onshore, the District of Columbia has enacted similar legislation.
“The paradox of the creation of this new form of “incorporated” segregated cell for me is that stateside legislative developments, as well as cases decided by U.S. courts since 2003, have left me now believing that the limited liability arrangements of unincorporated cell arrangements had become more likely to be recognized and enforced by judges in the United States. However, one wonders what effect this legislation will have on the thousands of existing unincorporated cell arrangements.” ~John O’Brien
Clearly, the creation of incorporated cell legislation will add another level of security to cell arrangements. However, will existing unincorporated cell arrangements now be considered inferior in their ability to shield cell assets from non-cell creditors? And furthermore, was this new form of cell legislation truly needed?
“Series LLCs” May Provide an Answer. U.S. business operations are no longer limited to sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, and limited liability companies (LLCs). LLCs have been around since the late 1970s, and appear to be the most popular corporate form. The "C" corporation is still available and can be treated as a partnership by making a subchapter “S” election with the Internal Revenue Service. However, the LLC provides limited liability and has the advantage of being treated like a partnership for tax purposes, because in 1998, the IRS granted LLCs pass-through status.
The latest development, introduced in Delaware in 1996, is the “Series LLC,” which has amazing similarity to SPCs and PCCs. The Series LLC is truly unique in that the LLC can designate a series of specified properties, business purposes, or investment objectives, and then segregate the debts, liabilities, and obligations relating to a particular series to be enforceable only against the assets of that particular series and not against the assets of the Series LLC generally or against any other series within the Series LLC.
Hypothetically, a national real estate developer for example could, within the same corporate structure, segregate the financials of individual real estate developments around the country and the failure of one residential development in a part of the country would be isolated from the success of other projects in other parts of the country. Furthermore, the assets of each, as well as the core assets of the Series LLC, would be protected from attachment for the debts and obligations of the failed venture. Eight states have followed the lead of Delaware in enacting Series LLCs.
Similarities to Segregated Cells. The provisions of the Series LLCs are dramatically similar to the segregated cell facilities and protected cell company legislation of offshore captive insurance domiciles like Bermuda and Guernsey. The offshore protected cell legislation and the Series LLC each contains requirements that must be followed to protect the core assets of the Series LLC or any other series from an enforcement action against the assets of a failed Series LLC. In the Series LLC, the following must be observed:
Separate financial records must be maintained for each series.
Notice must be placed on the face of the certificate of formation that one or more series are being established.
Accounting must keep series assets separate from the accounting of the Series LLC or any other series within the Series LLC.
The operating agreement must clearly designate and define one or more series of interest.
An attorney arguing for acceptance of the segregated liability of SPCs and PCCs, particularly of the offshore brand, can now simply point to domestic “Series LLCs” to explain to a U.S. judge how SPCs and PCCs are structured and why the firewalls should be respected. The Series LLCs provide our U.S. courts with a domestic example of how limited liability and segregation of assets can be provided for without separate incorporations.
The Effect of Mutual Risk and Legion Failures. The Bermuda-based Mutual Risk Management collapse as a leading provider of rental and segregated cell facilities and the insolvency of Mutual Risk Management’s U.S.-based Legion Insurance brought about a myriad of U.S. court cases. Those cases have created a strong precedent for courts to give full faith and credit to the applicability of offshore forums and law when considering cell arrangements. Occurring simultaneously with the development of the Series LLC, the Mutual Risk Management court decisions—while not dealing directly with the issue of upholding firewalls between individual assets—do send a clear message that our United States courts will defer to the terms set forth in the establishment of offshore cell or rental arrangements.
The Pemaquid Underwriter Brokerage, Inc. v. Mutual Holdings (Bermuda) LTD, No. 02–4691 (JAP), 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26480 (D.N.J. June 3, 2003), case concerned Bermuda-based Mutual Risk Management (MRM), a firm offering risk management and financing products and services. MRM was the parent of Mutual Indemnity (Bermuda) LTD, Legion Insurance, and Commonwealth Risk Services. Legion Insurance, a New Jersey corporation with its principal offices located in Philadelphia, was in the throes of bankruptcy during this litigation.
The case arose from Permaquid's participation in a rent-a-captive in Bermuda. Pemaquid, an MRM client based in New Jersey, purchased reinsurance from Mutual Indemnity, with Legion acting as the front for the program. As is typical in this situation, all collateral sent to the rent-a-captive to support its share of the risk is intended to be kept separate from the assets of the other participants.
Permaquid alleged, inter alia, that Mutual Indemnity failed to disclose Legion's deteriorating financial condition, did not keep Permaquid's assets in "segregated cells," improperly drew on Permaquid's letters of credit, and prevented Peraquid from benefiting from its own underwriting profits and investment income because of the failure of Legion. Further, Permaquid argued that the case should be tried in the United States. The defendants argued for dismissal based on the forum selection clause in the shareholders' agreement requiring the parties to litigate all disputes in Bermuda. After considering many good arguments from the plaintiffs as to why the court should exert jurisdiction over the dispute, the court sent the parties to Bermuda to litigate the matter, stating:
Here the Shareholder’s Agreement forum selection clause explicitly provided that the agreement "has been made and executed in Bermuda and shall be exclusively governed by and in accordance with the laws of Bermuda and any dispute concerning this Agreement shall be resolved exclusively by the courts of Bermuda.”
Another highly important case is Legion Insurance v. Stateco, Inc., No. C 05–03007 (JF), U.S. Dist. (N.D. Cal. October 11, 2006), involving the efforts of the Pennsylvania insurance commissioner to recover funds to pay disappointed U.S. claimants. Public policy clearly favored a U.S. court asserting jurisdiction. Instead, a court that most would consider "plaintiff-oriented," upheld the forum selection clause and Bermuda law and courts.
The insurance commissioner/liquidator/plaintiff was attempting to recover funds from various reinsurance companies of the fronting company, Legion Insurance, the MRM subsidiary mentioned above in the Pemaquid case. Under the reinsurance treaty, MRM would hold the premiums on behalf of the participating reinsurers. Under both a shareholders' and management agreement signed by Statego, disputes were to be determined by Bermuda courts. Statego advanced many reasons for U.S. jurisdiction, including a strong public policy argument that these programs affected the claims of thousands of U.S. insurance customers. Despite this, the California court did not assert jurisdiction over the Bermuda interests and instead upheld the forum selection clause asserting that international business interests rely on forum selection clauses in their dealings and that there is a strong public policy reason that U.S. courts uphold them.
Further evidence is found in the propensity for U.S. courts to defer to the law and agreements of other domiciles in offshore alternative risk claim situations in the fact that on April 25, 2003, the Supreme Court of Bermuda established a "Scheme of Arrangements" with MRM and any potential creditors under Section 99 of the Companies Act of 1981, and that this scheme was given full force and effect by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of N.Y. that issued a permanent injunction in support of the Scheme.
A Prediction. So, laying aside for a moment the introduction of new incorporated cell legislation, how was the stage being set for a U.S. court upholding the firewalls created by non-incorporated offshore segregated cell facilities? It appears to me that based on the United States having Series-based LLCs providing for segregation of assets in non-incorporated cells, and the precedent established by what U.S. courts have uniformly decided in the Mutual Risk Management cases, that a gambling man would predict that the protections allegedly provided by unincorporated offshore segregated firewalls would withstand the scrutiny of U.S. courts. Those courts would give full faith and credit to the laws of the offshore domiciles and the business agreements companies and individuals enter into offshore.
I would, however, offer one caveat: U.S. courts tend to give full faith and credit to domiciles that enact “reasonable” legislation, and that an informal measurement of “reasonableness” is how close the other country’s legislation matches our own. Competent counsel arguing for the U.S. Courts to assert jurisdiction will attempt to hold up the offshore legislation to contempt. Certain domicile’s legislation can perhaps be viewed as overreaching. An example would be provisions providing that if a creditor is successful in attaching any money through a good judicial fight in another domicile, he has to hold it in trust for the debtor. I think it is to Bermuda’s credit that in the MRM cases, U.S. courts have given full faith and credit to Bermuda in the face of claims of U.S. creditors.
As of last year, both Guernsey and one U.S. domicile’s law contain provisions for incorporation of the individual cells, although both domiciles continue to allow for the segregated liability between cells, even without the separate incorporation of cells. Clearly, the incorporation of the cells in a cell facility will add a new level of security. Also, it will add a new level of expense, as the offshore practitioners pointed out to me over 4 years ago. A key inquiry: Does this new legislation in some fashion weaken the strength of those cell arrangements where the cells are not incorporated? From a historic perspective, an argument could be made that it does.
Cell arrangements in Bermuda began with simple rent-a-cell arrangements. Because it was felt that the rent-a-cell facilities did not have adequate protection, the concept of segregated cell facilities took hold in Bermuda. Certainly, lawyers in Bermuda must have felt that the rental facility without the segregated cell feature was not up to the task.
Five years ago, during the World Captive Forum panel presentation in which I participated, the notion of an incorporated segregated cell was not looked on favorably by advocates of Bermuda cell facilities. Now, apparently the idea is catching on—at least in Guernsey, the District of Columbia, and in some other domiciles. But the question that surfaces is whether those legislators felt that the unincorporated segregated cell facility, like the rental cell before it, fell short in its design for the segregated protection of assets. When a U.S. court, or for that matter a court anywhere, next considers the safety of unincorporated cells, an advocate attempting to pierce those firewalls or ring circles will surely argue that the defendant had the option to incorporate the cell or convert it to a corporation but elected not to—perhaps at its own peril!
There might be good reasons from a tax point of view for incorporating a cell. Tax reasons might be advanced as distinguishing an incorporated cell from an unincorporated cell. In making selections when limited liability is a concern, sophisticated purchasers and advisers will be drawn toward the arrangement that provides the best asset protection. However, billions of dollars of alternative risk protection are already stationed in offshore arrangements and recent onshore arrangements of the rental cell or the unincorporated segregated cell variety.
Some Final Thoughts. A good question to ask—and one that will be surely asked by U.S. courts considering the rent-a-cell or segregated cell arrangement, is this: Does the enactment of new cell design legislation reinforce the position that the earlier cell arrangements have a weakness that needed correction? For example, was segregated cell legislation needed to provide the limited liability protection that the rent-a-cell arrangement lacked? And, was incorporated cell legislation needed to provide the limited liability protection that the segregated cell arrangement did not have?
It would be a good idea for participants in an unincorporated cell, in attempting to spare their assets from the claims of others, to be prepared to offer expert testimony that the firewalls were always there. These legislative changes providing for incorporated cells are only efforts to support those firewalls, or there are other reasons (such as tax considerations) driving the choice to incorporate. “Incorporated or not, the firewalls are impenetrable!” should be the argument.
The Series LLC developments and the court decisions since my original article in May 2004 [LINK] have left me with these two thoughts:
1. My personal opinion that incorporation may not be as highly recommended a choice as it once was to assure limited liability between cells.
2. It appears that a U.S. court may never consider the issue on its merits in any case and will instead defer to the law and courts of the offshore home of the cell facility, as the courts did in the Mutual Risk Management cases.
Perhaps, the horse is already out of the barn on the issue of the need for incorporation, since the movement toward incorporation being provided for in legislation has already begun. But it could be that further thought should be given to the need for incorporation provisions in cell legislation. There may be a need for existing cell structures—and there are a significant number of these—to either convert to separate incorporations or perhaps be perceived as mounting an inferior steed.
CICR comment: We recommend reading the lead tax article in this issue on the recent IRS position on cell captives. []
