Defense for NY Insurance Broker Trial Due to Present Case
The defense representing two Marsh insurance brokers accused of fraud and grand larceny by steering clients to insurers for kickbacks will begin presenting its case on Monday.
The non-jury trial began last April and is before New York Supreme Court Judge James A. Yates. Prrosecutors have portrayed the defendants William Gilman, former executive marketing director and managing director, and Edward McNenney, former Global Placement Excess Casualty and managing director, as criminals trying to deceive clients in arranging insurance contracts by steering those contracts to preferred insurers in return for lucrative kickbacks in the form of contingent commissions.
The prosecution rested its case last month and the court went into recess over the holiday season.
Proceedings, which were originally expected to take three months, have taken longer because the prosecution evidence involved considerably more transactions than expected, said Robert J. Cleary, an attorney with the law firm Proskauer Rose in New York City.
“It’s been very complicated,” he noted.
Judge Yates is due to rule on a motion for dismissal the attorneys have submitted before the before the defense begins presenting evidence.
The defense states that the prosecution failed to prove any of the 37 counts against the defendants. The counts include scheming to defraud, restraint of trade and competition, and grand larceny.
The case should be dismissed, they argue, because the prosecution presented no evidence proving that the insurance clients of Mr. Gilman and Mr. McNenney were denied the coverage they sought or paid inflated prices for it.
Neither executive personally benefited monetarily from the transactions, the defense said, nor was there any evidence presented to show they engaged in a concerted scheme to defraud their clients, according to the motion.
The defendants’ clients actually benefited because they were able to secure insurance in a very difficult market, and the means the defendants used to accomplish this—obtaining fictitious quotes from some insurers to make it appear there was some bidding for services—was not material to securing the final contract, the defense contends.
Published on January 11, 2008
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