CITIZENS INC

Trade Secret Lawsuit

In the first quarter of 2024, a jury trial was held in the “trade secret lawsuit”. The trade secret lawsuit was filed in 2018 by Citizens, CICA Life Ltd. (Bermuda) and CICA Life Insurance Company of America (collectively, the “Citizens Companies,” “we,” "us" or "our") against certain former employees and independent consultants who we alleged unlawfully took Citizens’ confidential information in order to unfairly compete with us. Our claims against these parties included various unfair competition, tortious interference, breach of contract and other related claims.

As previously disclosed, the jury found that Citizens should pay Alexis Delgado and Carlos Nalsen Landa, former independent consultants, approximately $1.3 million for “money had and received”, an equitable theory that claimed that the Citizens Companies would be unjustly enriched if they didn’t pay past and future commissions to Delgado and Landa. Additionally, the trial court awarded defendants Michael P. Buchweitz (“Buchweitz”) and Randall Riley (“Riley”) approximately $3.5 million of their legal fees. On August 16, 2024, the judge signed a Final Judgment reflecting the jury decision and the court award of the legal fees. We do not believe the jury properly found that Delgado or Landa were entitled to any prior or future commissions as there was no evidence that we actually held any amount of commissions that they claim they should have received. We also do not believe that Riley or Buchweitz are entitled to legal fees because they were found to have breached the contracts whose fee shifting provisions they sought to invoke.

We intend to appeal the judgment against us and accordingly on September 16, 2024, we filed a Limited Motion for Partial New Trial on these issues. On September 17, 2024, we filed an appeal bond with the court in order to stay any execution of the judgment against us.