Life Partners Holdings Inc., which lets customers gamble on other people’s life insurance policies, mostly beat back claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company defrauded investors. But Life Partners and its executives are still reckoning with class action plaintiffs pressing related securities fraud claims, and on Thursday they lost an early bid to derail the case.
U.S. District Judge Alia Moses in Del Rio, Texas, allowed the proposed class action to move forward in a 56-page decision, rejecting a motion to dismiss filed by defense lawyers at Baker & McKenzie. The investors, Moses ruled, adequately alleged that Life Partners duped them about improper practices at the heart of the company’s business.
