Paying the Claims Adjusters

Two personal-injury lawyers ran a firm that settled clients' accident claims with insurance companies. Over about three years, through intermediaries, they arranged secret payments — usually a percentage of the settlement, about $3 million in all across twenty cases — to insurance-company claims adjusters to get those claims settled quickly. The insurers prohibited their adjusters from taking such payments, and the payments were never disclosed to them. The government did not claim the settlements were inflated. The defence argued that the settlements were fair, the insurers lost no money, and the 'honest services' fraud law was too vague to make their conduct a crime.