Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: Third action brought in U.S. probe of heir location services, (Aug 18, 2016)
Organizations Mentioned:Brandenburger & Davis | Kemp & Associates Inc.
By Jeffrey May, J.D.
As a result of an ongoing federal antitrust investigation of the heir location services industry, a Salt Lake City-based heir location services provider and its co-owner have been indicted for participating in a conspiracy to allocate customers for such services. Kemp & Associates Inc. and its co-owner and vice president, Daniel J. Mannix, were charged yesterday in the federal district court in Salt Lake City (U.S. v. Kemp & Associates Inc., Case No. 2:16-cr-00403-DS).
According to the one-count indictment, the defendants’ role in the customer allocation conspiracy lasted from September 1999 until January 2014. Heir location firms identify people who may be entitled to an inheritance from the estate of someone who died without a will. The heir location firms then enter into agreements with those people to help secure their inheritances in exchange for a fee, the Justice Department explained.
The indictment does not identify the other company and the other individuals who allegedly conspired with Kemp and Mannix. A California-based heir location services provider and the company's president, as well as the owner of a Massachusetts-based heir location services provider also have agreed to plead guilty for their roles in allocating heir location services customers.
California-based Brandenburger & Davis and the company’s president Bradley N. Davis were charged in December 2015. These defendants agreed to pay an $890,000 fine for their role in the alleged conspiracy between November 2003 and August 2012.
The other individual named in the probe, Richard A. Blake Jr., was charged in January 2016. According to court documents, Blake engaged in the conspiracy from September 1999 and January 2014, the same period in which Kemp and Mannix purportedly engaged in the conspiracy.
Acting antitrust chief’s comments. "For over a decade, the defendants schemed to line their pockets at the expense of beneficiaries," said Renata Hesse, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department Antitrust Division, in announcing the case. "These charges underscore the division’s commitment to hold heir location services executives and their companies accountable for cheating heirs whose relatives died without a will."
Companies: Kemp & Associates Inc.; Brandenburger & Davis
News: Antitrust AntitrustDivisionNews