The Court of Accounts, 2nd Chamber, in charge of hearing contentious-administrative matters, unanimously decided to confirm two resolutions of the Superintendence of Insurance (SIS) and of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Paraguay (BCP) by which fines were applied to an insurance agent and a foreign insurance company, for carrying out insurance activities without the latter being authorized to operate in Paraguay.
This ruling constitutes an important precedent, since it would be one of the first cases in which a sanction is imposed on a foreign insurance company for insuring risks in Paraguay without being authorized by the SIS. Although Insurance Law No. 827/96 already established the sanction for operating without the proper authorization, in the past there were no known cases in which a fine or sanction had been imposed.
According to the ruling, the intermediation of the sanctioned insurance agent was demonstrated, among other things, by documents proving that she sent insurance proposals from a foreign insurance company that was not authorized to operate in the country, offering coverage from the latter to persons domiciled in Paraguay. In addition, according to the ruling, among the evidence presented by the SIS and the BCP were documents proving that persons domiciled in Paraguay had contracted insurance with a foreign insurance company not authorized to operate in the country.
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