A number of guarantees provided by the Company relate to real estate investments, in which the investor has borrowed funds, and the Company has guaranteed their obligation to their lender. In some cases, the investor is an affiliate, and in other cases the unaffiliated investor purchases the real estate investment from the Company. The Company provides these guarantees to assist them in obtaining financing for the transaction on more beneficial terms. The Company’s maximum potential exposure under these guarantees was $1,735 million at December 31, 2005. Any payments that may become required of the Company under these guarantees would either first be reduced by proceeds received by the creditor on a sale of the assets, or would provide the Company with rights to obtain the assets. These guarantees expire at various times over the next 10 years. At December 31, 2005, no amounts were accrued as a result of the Company’s assessment that it is unlikely payments will be required.
On an ongoing basis, the Company’s internal supervisory and control functions review the quality of sales, marketing and other customer interface procedures and practices and may recommend modifications or enhancements. From time to time, this review process results in the discovery of product administration, servicing or other errors, including errors relating to the timing or amount of payments due to customers. In certain cases, if appropriate, the Company may offer customers remediation and may incur charges, including the cost of such remediation, administrative costs and regulatory fines.
In October 2001, four housing advocacy groups and several individuals filed an action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, National Fair Housing Alliance, Inc., et al. v. Prudential Insurance, et al. The complaint alleges, inter alia, that Prudential Insurance and Prudential Property and Casualty Insurance Company intentionally engaged in discriminatory practices to limit, restrict or deny homeowners insurance in several urban areas, including Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Richmond, Virginia and Toledo, Ohio, as well as suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The complaint asserts causes of action based on alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act and describes allegedly discriminatory homeowners insurance underwriting guidelines, terms and conditions and rating territories. The complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and compensatory and punitive damages in unspecified amounts. In July 2002, the District Court denied the Company’s motion to dismiss. The matter settled in January 2006.
The Company, along with a number of other insurance companies, received formal requests for information from the State of New York Attorney General’s Office (NYAG), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office, the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, the Department of Labor, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of California, the District Attorney of the County of San Diego, and various state insurance departments relating to payments to insurance intermediaries and certain other practices that may be viewed as anti-competitive. The Company may receive additional requests from these and other regulators and governmental authorities concerning these and related subjects. The Company is cooperating with these inquiries and has had discussions with certain authorities, including the NYAG, in an effort to resolve the inquiries into this matter. These matters are also the subject of litigation brought by private plaintiffs, including purported class actions that have been consolidated in the multidistrict litigation in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, In re Employee Benefit Insurance Brokerage Antitrust Litigation, and two shareholder derivative actions, Gillespie v. Ryan and Kahn v. Agnew and the California Department of Banking and Insurance. Both derivative actions were dismissed without prejudice. In Gillespie, the plaintiff entered into a tolling agreement with the Company to permit a Special Evaluation Committee of the Board of Directors to investigate and evaluate his demand that the Company take action regarding these matters. The Committee’s investigation is in progress.
The Company’s subsidiary, American Skandia Life Assurance Corporation, is in discussions with various state insurance departments concerning a remediation program to correct errors in the administration of approximately 11,000 annuity contracts issued by that company. The owners of these contracts did not receive notification that the contracts were approaching or past their designated annuitization date or default annuitization date (both dates referred to as the “contractual annuity date”) and the contracts were not annuitized at their contractual annuity dates. Some of these contracts also were affected by data integrity errors resulting in incorrect contractual annuity dates. The lack of notice and data integrity errors, as reflected on the annuities administrative system, all occurred before the acquisition of the American Skandia entities by the Company. Certain state insurance departments have requested modifications to the remediation program that the Company anticipates will impact the overall cost of the program. The remediation and administrative costs of the remediation program would be subject to the indemnification provisions of the acquisition agreement pursuant to which the Company purchased the American Skandia entities in May 2003 from Skandia.
damages and against Prudential Securities for $250 million in punitive damages. In July 2003, the court denied Prudential Securities’ motion to set aside or reduce the jury verdict and sustained the judgment in the amount of $269 million, including prejudgment interest and attorneys fees. Prudential Securities’ appeal is pending.
Commencing in 2003, the Company received formal requests for information relating to the purchase and sale of mutual fund shares and variable annuities from regulators and law enforcement authorities, including the SEC, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), the New Jersey Bureau of Securities (NJBS), the NYAG, the Securities Division of Massachusetts (MSD) and the United States Attorney, District of Massachusetts (USAM). The matters remaining under investigation principally concern the retail brokerage operations of the former Prudential Securities (PSI) and the business of certain American Skandia entities. The Company is cooperating with all investigations.
In 2003, in connection with these investigations, the SEC filed a civil action against individual PSI brokers and a branch manager; the MSD filed administrative complaints against both PSI and certain brokers and branch managers. The MSD’s complaint against PSI alleged that it knew or should have known about alleged deceptive market timing and late trading in mutual funds in its Boston branch, failed reasonably to supervise the conduct of the brokers in that branch, and failed to implement controls designed to prevent and detect violation of Massachusetts securities law. The SEC and MSD complaints against former PSI brokers and branch managers were based on allegations related to market timing similar to those the MSD asserted against PSI. These actions remain pending.
In August and September 2005, two former PSI brokers pled guilty to criminal charges brought by the USAM based on their participation in deceptive practices relating to market timing activities, and it is possible that additional civil and/or criminal charges may be brought against these and other former PSI personnel.
The investigations by the SEC, NYSE, NASD, NJBS, NYAG, MSD and USAM of market timing activities at PSI continue, with each evaluating PSI and its former personnel from the perspective of federal and state laws
If achieved, settlement of the matters relating to PSI and American Skandia also could involve continuing monitoring, changes to and/or supervision of business practices, findings that may adversely affect existing or cause additional litigation, adverse publicity and other adverse impacts to the Company’s businesses.
In August 1999, a Prudential Insurance employee and several Prudential Insurance retirees filed an action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Dupree, et al., v. Prudential Insurance, et al., against Prudential Insurance and its Board of Directors in connection with a group annuity contract entered into in 1989 between the Prudential Retirement Plan and Prudential Insurance. The suit alleged that the annuitization of certain retirement benefits violated ERISA and that, in the event of demutualization, Prudential Insurance would retain shares distributed under the annuity contract in violation of ERISA’s fiduciary duty requirements. In July 2001, plaintiffs filed an amended complaint dropping three counts, and we filed an answer denying the essential allegations of the complaint. The amended complaint seeks injunctive and monetary relief, including the return of what are claimed to be excess investment and advisory fees paid by the Retirement Plan to Prudential. In March 2002, the court dismissed certain of the claims against the individual defendants. A non-jury trial was concluded in January 2005. The court has not yet issued its decision.
In 2000, a nationwide class action, Shane v. Humana, et al., was brought on behalf of provider physicians and physician groups in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The complaint alleges that Prudential Insurance and other health care companies engaged in an industry-wide conspiracy to defraud physicians by failing to pay under provider agreements and by unlawfully coercing providers to enter into agreements with unfair and unreasonable terms. An amended complaint, naming additional plaintiffs, including three state medical associations, and an additional defendant, was filed in March 2001, and alleges claims of breach of contract, quantum meruit, unjust enrichment, violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, conspiracy to violate RICO, aiding and abetting RICO violations, and violations of state prompt pay statutes and the California unfair business practices statute. The amended complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages in unspecified amounts, treble damages pursuant to RICO, and attorneys’ fees. In September 2002, the District Court granted plaintiffs’ motion for class certification of a nationwide class of provider physicians which was affirmed in September 2004 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit with respect only to the federal claims for conspiracy to violate RICO and aiding and abetting RICO violations. In September 2005, the district court entered a final order approving the settlement of these claims by Prudential Insurance, which provides for payment to plaintiffs in the amount of $22 million. Two members of the plaintiff class have appealed the final order. In February 2006, the appeals were dismissed.
The Company’s litigation and regulatory matters are subject to many uncertainties, and given their complexity and scope, their outcome cannot be predicted. It is possible that the results of operations or the cash flow of the Company in a particular quarterly or annual period could be materially affected by an ultimate unfavorable resolution of pending litigation and regulatory matters depending, in part, upon the results of operations or cash flow for such period. Management believes, however, that the ultimate outcome of all pending
The unaudited quarterly results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2005 and 2004 are summarized in the table below:
The supplemental combining financial information presents the consolidated financial position and results of operations for Prudential Financial, Inc. and its subsidiaries (together, the “Company”), separately reporting the Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business. The Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business are both fully integrated operations of the Company and are not separate legal entities. The supplemental combining financial information presents the results of the Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business as if they were separate reporting entities and should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements.
The Closed Block Business was established on the date of demutualization and includes the assets and liabilities of the Closed Block (see Note 9 to the consolidated financial statements for a description of the Closed Block). It also includes assets held outside the Closed Block necessary to meet insurance regulatory capital requirements related to products included within the Closed Block; deferred policy acquisition costs related to the Closed Block policies; the principal amount of the IHC debt (as discussed below and in Note 11 to the consolidated financial statements) and related unamortized debt issuance costs, as well as an interest rate swap related to the IHC debt; and certain other related assets and liabilities. The Financial Services Businesses consist of the Insurance, Investment, and International Insurance and Investments divisions and Corporate and Other operations.
In the event of a liquidation, dissolution or winding-up of the Company, holders of Common Stock and holders of Class B Stock would be entitled to receive a proportionate share of the net assets of the Company that remain after paying all liabilities and the liquidation preferences of any preferred stock.