2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-SIX - Insurance (§§ 101 — 10377) › Subtitle 1 - Insurance Generally (§§ 101 — 4513) › Chapter 40 - Rehabilitation and Liquidation (§§ 4001 — 4054) › § 4021 - Liquidation—Actions by and against the liquidator

(1) Upon issuance of an order appointing a liquidator of a domestic insurer or of an alien insurer domiciled in Puerto Rico, no action at law shall be brought against the insurer or the liquidator, whether in Puerto Rico or elsewhere, nor shall an action of that nature be maintained or entered after issuance of such order. The courts in Puerto Rico shall give full faith and credit to injunctions against the company or the liquidator or the continuation of existing actions against the liquidator or the company when such injunctions are included in an order for liquidation issued according to corresponding provisions in effect in other states. Whenever, in the liquidator’s judgment and for the protection of the estate of the insurer, the intervention of the liquidator is required in an action against the insurer that is pending outside of Puerto Rico, the liquidator may intervene in such an action. The liquidator may cover the expenses for the defense of any action in which he/she intervenes from the estate of the insurer pursuant to this section.
(2) The liquidator may, upon or after the issuance of a liquidation order, within four (4) years or within the period of time additional to those four (4) years as applicable laws may allow, file suit or institute a proceeding on behalf of the estate of the insurer upon any cause of action in which the prescriptive term established by the applicable laws has not expired at the time of filing the petition for such an order. When, by any agreement, a prescriptive term is fixed for filing a suit or institute a proceeding upon any claim, or for filing any claim, proof of claim, proof of loss, lawsuit, notice or like action or when during any proceeding, judicial or otherwise, a prescriptive term is fixed, either in the proceeding or by applicable laws, to take any action, file any claim or plea or engage in any act, and when in such a case the term has expired at the date of filing the petition, the liquidator may, for the benefit of the estate of the insurer, take the action required of or allowed to the insurer within a period of one hundred and eighty (180) days after filing a liquidation order or within such additional time, as is shown to the satisfaction of the court not to be unfairly prejudicial to the other party.
(3) No prescriptive term or defense of laches shall run with respect to any action against the insurer during the period between the date of filing a petition for the liquidation order and the denial thereof. Any action against the insurer that might have been commenced when the petition was filed may be filed for at least sixty (60) days after the petition is denied.
(4) Any guaranty association or foreign guaranty association shall have standing to appear in any judicial proceeding concerning the liquidation of an insurer if such association is obligated or might be obligated to take any action as a result of the liquidation.
—Ins. Code, added as § 40.210 on Aug. 17, 1991, No. 72, § 1; Dec. 14, 2007, No. 206, § 21.
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