Ellington Financial Inc.

Neither we, nor our subsidiaries, nor Ellington nor its affiliates (including our Manager) are currently subject to any legal proceedings that we or our Manager consider material to us. Nevertheless, we, our subsidiaries, and Ellington and its affiliates operate in highly regulated markets that currently are under regulatory scrutiny, and over the years, Ellington and its affiliates have received, and we expect in the future that we and they may receive, inquiries and requests for documents and information from various federal, state and foreign regulators.

In addition, as described in "Note 27 Subsequent Events—Longbridge Settlement Agreementin the notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, on January 28, 2026, Longbridge entered into a settlement agreement (the “Settlement Agreement”) pursuant to which it is entitled to receive a payment of $17.0 million from one of the other parties to the Settlement Agreement. The timing and amount of any payment to be received under the Settlement Agreement will depend on the other party’s performance of its obligations thereunder.

We and Ellington cannot provide any assurance that, whether the result of regulatory inquiries or otherwise, neither we nor Ellington nor its affiliates will become subject to investigations, enforcement actions, fines, penalties or the assertion of private litigation claims or that, if any such events were to occur, they would not materially adversely affect us. For a discussion of these and other related risks, see "Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors—We, Ellington, or its affiliates may be subject to regulatory inquiries and proceedings, or other legal proceedings" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.