The Northstar Financial lawsuit most people are searching for involves Northstar Financial Services (Bermuda) Ltd., a Bermuda insurance company that collapsed in 2020 after its owner, Greg Lindberg, used it to fund self-dealing transactions with his own affiliated entities. Investors who bought Northstar annuity-type products are now pursuing recovery on three parallel tracks: the court-supervised liquidation in Bermuda, a $700 million federal civil suit filed by Northstar’s liquidators against Lindberg and more than 900 other defendants, and FINRA arbitration claims against the U.S. brokerage firms that sold the products.1Research file
What Happened to Northstar Financial Services
Northstar sold fixed and variable-rate annuity-type products to high-net-worth international clients under names including Global VIP Elite, Global Advantage Plus Series, Global Advantage Select, Global Index Product, and Global Interest Accumulator. Advisors pitched them as conservative, tax-advantaged investments comparable to bank CDs, emphasizing the supposed safety of segregated accounts that would keep investor money separate from company creditors.
Greg Lindberg acquired Northstar in 2018. Court filings allege that he and several associates then replaced the company’s liquid assets with illiquid loans to Lindberg-controlled entities, using a 2019 Memorandum of Understanding to lend and invest in affiliates on terms the liquidators later called fraudulent transfers made without the consent of the Bermuda Monetary Authority.
By May 2020, policyholders had asked to surrender roughly $73 million in policies while Northstar held only about $8.2 million in cash. On September 18, 2020, the Bermuda Monetary Authority filed winding-up petitions against Northstar and a related entity, Omnia Ltd., on insolvency grounds after a Deloitte review identified non-compliance and liquidity problems. Total claims across the two companies run to approximately $553 million, with Northstar alone accounting for roughly $413 million.
How Investors Can Try to Recover Money
There are three live paths. Which one matters most depends on what kind of Northstar product you bought and who sold it to you.
The Bermuda Liquidation
Northstar’s liquidation is being run by Joint Provisional Liquidators John Johnston and Elizabeth Cava under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Bermuda. In August 2021 the court established three investor classes: fixed-rate investors (about $225 million in claims), variable-rate investors (about $105 million), and general creditors (about $53 million).
The class you fall into controls what you can recover. A July 2023 Bermuda Supreme Court ruling found that segregated accounts had been effectively established for variable investments, meaning the underlying assets are linked to those policyholders and available to pay their claims. For fixed and indexed investments, the court found segregated accounts existed on paper but, with minor exceptions, no assets were actually linked to them. A September 2025 ruling confirmed that variable policyholder assets remain segregated, while fixed policyholders may maintain claims against general account assets. Fixed-rate investors generally cannot claim against Northstar’s segregated assets but may still pursue remedies such as breach-of-duty claims or tracing of commingled funds.
Recoveries are slow. As of August 2025, the liquidation had taken in about $154.4 million in total receipts, including roughly $19 million from the sale of an investment called Clanwilliam, but liquidation expenses had already consumed $59.3 million of that. The liquidators anticipated holding a first meeting of creditors in the first half of 2026 to begin finalizing valuations and distribution timelines.
FINRA Arbitration Against the Brokerage Firms
Because recovery from the Bermuda estate is uncertain and slow, many investors have gone after the U.S. brokerage firms that recommended Northstar products. These FINRA claims typically allege that firms pitched risky offshore investments to clients with conservative objectives, failed to conduct adequate due diligence on the products, and misrepresented them as safe alternatives to domestic bank instruments.
Firms named in these claims include Ocean Financial Services, Truist Investment Services, Bankoh Investment Services, Hancock Whitney Investment Services, and Cetera Financial, among others. Outcomes vary widely. In January 2023, a Latin American investor settled a claim against Ocean Financial Services for $45,000 after seeking $80,000; other Ocean Financial claims have sought as much as $500,000.
The largest reported arbitration result came in March 2026, when a FINRA panel in Seattle ordered Truist Investment Services to pay investor Elton Simoes $2,003,607 in compensatory damages plus $701,000 in legal fees and costs. The panel found for Simoes on breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, and fraud claims tied to the recommendation of Northstar products. As a condition of the award, Simoes had to assign any remaining claims against the Northstar liquidation accounts to Truist.
The $700 Million Federal Lawsuit
In January 2023, the Joint Provisional Liquidators filed a complaint in U.S. Bankruptcy Court against more than 900 defendants, including Lindberg and numerous affiliated entities. The amended complaint filed in September 2023 asserts 48 causes of action, including federal civil RICO claims, and seeks approximately $700 million in damages. It alleges that Lindberg and key associates orchestrated the looting of Northstar’s assets through a web of affiliated transactions.
The case has moved in pieces. Devin Solow, one of the named “Senior Decision Makers,” consented to judgment in July 2024. Cooperation and stay agreements were reached with Christa Miller and Eric Bostic in September 2024. Beginning in August 2024, the liquidators obtained entries of default against 59 defendants who failed to respond. The case against Aspida Financial Services was dismissed in January 2024 on jurisdictional grounds, and motions to dismiss from other defendants remained pending as of late 2024. Individual investors do not need to join this suit to pursue their own arbitration or liquidation claims; it is being prosecuted by the liquidators on behalf of the estate.
Lindberg’s Criminal Case and Restitution Order
Lindberg’s criminal exposure matters to investors because it drives the restitution numbers and shapes what assets may ultimately be available.
Lindberg was first indicted in 2019 for attempting to bribe North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey between 2017 and 2018, funneling millions in campaign contributions and other payments to seek the removal of a senior state regulator overseeing his insurance companies. A federal jury convicted him in 2020, the Fourth Circuit overturned that conviction in 2022 over jury-instruction problems, and a second jury convicted him again in May 2024 of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds.
In February 2023, Lindberg was separately charged with orchestrating a $2 billion fraud scheme in which he misused insurance company funds and forgave more than $125 million in loans to himself. He pleaded guilty in November 2024 to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, covering wire fraud, investment adviser fraud, and insurance-related crimes, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.
On May 26, 2026, Federal District Judge Max O. Cogburn sentenced Lindberg, then 56, to more than 12 years in federal prison for both the bribery and fraud convictions. At sentencing he had already served 561 days in the Gaston County Jail and 633 days in federal prison following the original, later-overturned conviction.
The civil numbers are larger. In January 2026, Wake County Superior Court Judge Graham Shirley ordered Lindberg and two of his remaining companies, including Global Growth, to pay more than $526 million to policyholders in a case filed in October 2019 by four Lindberg-formerly-owned life insurance companies: Southland National Insurance Corp., Bankers Life Insurance Co., Colorado Bankers Life Insurance Co., and Southland National Reinsurance Corp. Judge Shirley cited “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” and noted that many affected policyholders were elderly.
On April 3, 2026, court-appointed special master Joseph Grier recommended that Lindberg pay roughly $1.625 billion in restitution to the insurance companies he defrauded. Judge Cogburn accepted the report but raised the final figure to $1.655 billion, declared it “due and payable immediately,” and authorized liens against Lindberg’s property. On June 9, 2026, Lindberg moved to halt the restitution order, contending that mandatory offsets totaling nearly $2.9 billion reduce his obligation to zero and that he has effectively overpaid by about $1.27 billion.
Other “Northstar” Lawsuits That Are Not This Case
Two unrelated matters often surface in the same searches and should not be confused with the Northstar Financial Services (Bermuda) litigation.
NorthStar Healthcare Income, Inc. was a public, non-traded REIT formed in 2010 to invest in senior housing and healthcare facilities. Its estimated net asset value fell from the original $10 per share to $3.89 in 2020, and in June 2025 a Welltower Inc. affiliate acquired it in an all-cash deal paying shareholders $3.03 per share. Investors have filed their own FINRA arbitration claims against broker-dealers that sold the REIT, including a December 2023 panel order requiring Independent Financial Group and a former broker to pay $1 million in compensatory damages for losses tied to NorthStar Healthcare and other private placements. This is a different company from Northstar Financial Services (Bermuda).
Northstar Financial Advisors, Inc. v. Schwab Investments is a separate class action in which Northstar Financial Advisors sued Schwab in 2008 over the Schwab Total Bond Market Fund’s alleged deviation from its stated investment policies. The Ninth Circuit dismissed the class action on September 14, 2018, holding the state-law claims barred by the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998. Here, Northstar was the plaintiff, not the collapsed company, and the matter has no connection to Lindberg or to the Bermuda insurer.