With fewer hurdles to face in bringing lawsuits against employee benefit plan fiduciaries than against directors and officers, more victims of Ponzi schemes will file pension liability suits, a legal expert predicted recently.

A lack of regulation is contributing to a crisis that will ultimately spill over into the directors and officer liability world--global warming, predicts a leading plaintiff attorney.

Did the availability of directors and officers liability insurance products contribute to the credit crisis fueled by investment firms that securitized subprime mortgages and other debt obligations?

Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, which acquired Odyssey Re last month, announced its intention to voluntarily delist its shares from the New York Stock Exchange.

Insurers may have contributed to the credit crisis, because misbehaving company management increasingly believes their liability insurance policies protect them, a lawyer suggested at an industry conference last week.

Bernard Madoff could not be convinced to buy professional liability insurance for his investment services, but legal requirements did force him to purchase a fidelity bond, a specialty broker revealed at an industry conference.

Crime insurance and fidelity bonds provide only limited protection to financial institutions and other insureds seeking to recover losses from fraudulent operations like mortgage scams and Ponzi schemes, experts said.

After an unexpected second-quarter dip, securities lawsuit filings shot back up in the third quarter.