There is a lawsuit which was filed against group of companies and also an individual. In this the suit is claiming that there is an illegal payday lending scheme which was orchestrated. Along with this, the claim is also about an attempt of shielding themselves from the liability through hiding behind the sovereign immunity of Native American Tribe. This is the reason there is proposal for class action which should be filed against these group of companies along with the individual.
This suit is naming the following defendants in mark e curry lawsuit . They are
- Mark Curry
- AWL Inc
- American Web Loan Inc
- Red Stone
- Medley Opportunity Fund II LP
- Medley Capital Corporation
To understand this, based on the complaint, defendants have offered a payday loan to the consumers who are in financial needs. In this the plan was to offer instant cash which was involving the interest rates of 737.97 percent which is really high. This has violated the usury laws.
So, the suit is arguing that these operations of defendants have violated usury laws in Virginia. There is law which prohibits that a lender cannot demand over 12 % of interest on loans. So, the defendant has exceeded this margin very much and they are in question now.
There were many layers of protection which was planned by these defendants. They attempted to secure themselves with many layers of protection from the liability. They have achieved this by making an agreement with Otoe-Missouria Tribe. The agreement was to provide a cut of companies’ profit to the tribe. So they were providing the profit against the protection. This is the reason defendants were using the name and details of the tribal community in exchange to profit. So, these are the things which were explained in the complaint.
From the last six years the curry’s companies, which is known as MacFarlane Group Inc is making millions of dollars through issuing loans which was in the name Defendant American Web Loan. This was the entity which has been formed under the laws of Otoe -Missouria Tribe. Through this they were able to avoid federal and state laws. Along with these, they succeeded in hiding the role of the Curry’s companies. Even though the American Web Loan is given as lender of Internet loans, the Tribe had minimal involvement in entire operations. Other thing was the Tribe was getting 1 percent of net profits from loans.
So, defendants were using the Tribe as merely a front and they were earning all the profits. They were only providing the infrastructure to the market, underwrite, fund, and collect he loans and handle the entire process.
Curry founded this group MacFarlane in 2010. This was a specialized service providing firm. This was focused mainly support on back office, technological resources, innovation in models and service products. In 2016 the Tribe called Otoe-Missouria which is an American Indian in the Oklahoma has announced an acquisition of the MacFarlane Group.