Last November Summary Judgement was granted against Zeek Rewards’ net-winner class in the US.

The Zeek Receiver has been working on a plan to claw back illegitimate earnings from over 9000 net-winner affiliates.

On January 17th the Receiver submitted \a proposal to establish how much each Zeek Rewards net-winner will have to pay back.

This overall aim of the Receiver’s proposal is to

give each class member individual notice of the amount of his or her “net winnings” according to RVG’s records, an opportunity to respond to that amount with evidence of a different amount and access to a fair and expedient process to resolve any cases in which the Receiver and Net Winner cannot agree on the amount of the Final Judgment.

Specifically, the proposed plan will see the Receiver contact Zeek’s US net-winners before January 31st. Net-winners will be notified of how much they stole from victims, as per Rex Venture Group’s books.

he Receiver will first notify each class member of the amount of his or her Net Winnings by email to the email address provided by the net winner in connection with any account included in determining the amount of Net Winnings as well as any other email address that has been provided by the net winner following the appointment of the Receiver.

The Receiver shall also post a link on the Receivership website that allows class members to receive notification of the amount of their Net Winnings.

In the event that the notice cannot be delivered to any email address provided by the Net Winner, the Receiver will also send a letter to the last known physical address of the Net Winner informing the Net Winner of the proceedings and the availability of the amount of his or her Net Winnings on the Receivership website.

The net-winner class attorneys will also post a notice on the net-winner class website and communicate with net-winners regarding the availability of their net-winnings amount.

Net-winners will be given until March 31st to respond to the amount the Receiver has calculated.

Responses are optional,

must be in writing and must include the Net Winner Class member’s specific proposed alternative calculation (in US$) of Net Winnings and the Net Winner’s evidence supporting the alternative calculation, including, without limitation, independent documentation (such as bank records).

Net-winners wishing to dispute the amount they stole from Zeek Rewards investors

should only be permitted to include money paid into RVG / ZeekRewards and received from ZeekRewards for the particular class member’s usernames.

No “expenses” or other “setoffs” should be permitted to be deducted from this amount, including but not limited to, expenses alleged to have been incurred in participating, promoting, recruiting other participants, paying for the accounts of others or loaning money to other participants.

The Receiver has the option of agreeing or disagreeing with the alternative owed amount.

If the Receiver agrees with the alternate calculation then Final Judgment should be entered in that amount plus prejudgment interest.

In the event that the Receiver does not agree to the Net Winner’s alternate calculation, the Receiver will attempt on or before May 15, 2017 (or 45 days after the deadline for submission of responses if not March 31, 2017) to resolve the amount of Net Winnings through negotiations with that Net Winner.

If the amount of a Net Winner Class member’s amount of Net Winnings is not resolved during the negotiation period, then the Receiver proposes that both the Receiver and the Net Winner will have the opportunity to refer the dispute to a Special Master.

Net-winner affiliates can make a request to refer their matter to the Special Master by June 15th. The Receiver has the option until July 15th.

Referral to a decision by the Special Master typically requires both parties to ‘accept the Special Master’s decision as binding‘.

If not, an appeal can be filed in the event of a disagreement and the matter decided by the court. This might eventually lead to a trial by jury to decide the matter.

It should be noted that this is a highly unlikely scenario given the amounts in question and granting of final judgement against Zeek’s top net-winner scammers.

If a net-winner affiliate doesn’t challenge the reported clawback amount,

Final Judgment should be entered in the amount of their Net Winnings as calculated by the Receiver plus prejudgment interest, calculated at the North Carolina statutory rate of 8% per annum from August 17, 2012.

Voluntary settlements are still on the table for net-winners

To date, there have been numerous settlements approved by the Court in which net winners and the Receiver agreed on an amount to be repaid, often with payment terms that allowed the net winner to repay the agreed amount over a number of months.

The Receiver requests that notwithstanding the entry of summary judgment and the process described above, members of the Net Winner Class and the Receiver still be permitted to discuss settlement of the Receiver’s claims against them while the above-described process is pending.

Once a decision is made on the clawback settlement process, that option is off the table.

The Receiver’s settlement proposal is currently before the court awaiting a decision.

The net-winner attorneys have already signed off on it, so it’s unlikely to be rejected by the court.

 

Footnote: Our thanks to Don@ASDUpdates for providing a copy of the Receiver’s “Motion to Enter Proposed Order On Process For Determining the Amount of Final Judgments against Net Winner Class Members” (filed January 17th).