Bill: Draft Anti-Scam Insurance Repeal Act

[HatManMC]

CONGRESS OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT​

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A BILL TO
REPEAL THE ANTI-SCAM INSURANCE PROVISION OF THE PDRA TO ALLOW THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE TO FOCUS ON IMPORTANT MATTERS

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The people of the Commonwealth of Redmont, through their elected Representatives in the Congress and the force of law ordained to that Congress by the people through the constitution, do hereby enact the following provisions into law:

PART 1 - PRELIMINARIES
1 - Short Title and Enactment
(1) This Act may be cited as the "Anti-Scam Insurance Repeal Act" or "ASIRA".
(2) This Act is to be repealed immediately upon its signage.
(3) This Act was authored by Speaker HatManMC.
(4) This Act has been cosponsored by Representative lovepurplepoodle.
(5) This Act amends the following acts:
(a) Provisional Debt Recovery Act

2 - Reasons and Intent
(1) Currently, we are in one of the biggest deficits in the government's history, with $50+ million in debt and millions more added through our deficit every year.
(2) The provisions made in the Taxation Act were a welcome addition to the revenue of the government, but still we must cut some programs in order to remain solvent as a government.
(3) The Anti-Scam Insurance provision of the Provisional Debt Recovery Act has inflated the budgetary needs of the Department of Commerce by a million and a half for September, and though the DoC projects this need to go down, it still takes hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars into a frankly unnecessary program.
(4) This also serves to push for more education for newer players into what banks and financial institutions to trust. We should be incentivizing people to make good choices with their money and letting them know how, not covering the butts of people after unknowingly making a bad call.
(5) This Act serves to repeal the Provisional Debt Recovery Act's provision for Anti-Scam Insurance as a measure to fight the deficit.

PART 2: AMENDMENTS
3 - Provisional Debt Recovery Act Amendments
The Provisional Debt Recovery Act shall be amended as follows:

PART III: ANTI-SCAM INSURANCE

10 - Anti-Scam Insurance
(1) Establishment. The DoC is to run Anti-Scam Insurance, which provides players and companies with protection against entities declared bankrupt. It is meant to only pay out where all other methods of debt recovery have failed.

(2) Cost. Anti-Scam Insurance shall have a fixed monthly cost set by the DoC which shall be paid to account designated by them. DoC may introduce a tier system for payments or otherwise change rates through a set policy.

(3) Coverage. Any player or company that agrees to pay into it shall be enrolled and covered by Anti-Scam Insurance. The amount of coverage shall be set via DoC policy and determined by them. The DoC may elect to have different tiers be eligible for varying levels of coverage.

(4) Claims. DoC shall set policy for how covered entities shall apply for a payout. DoC shall further set reasonable limits on its policy for payouts but shall not payout more than 100% of recoverable damages.

(5) Exemptions. (a) The following forms of damages shall not normally be eligible for payout under anti-scam insurance:

(i) Punitive damages;

(ii) Consequential damages; and

(iii) Legal fees.

(b) DoC may create exceptions to the previous subsection to allow covered entities to be paid out for these damages via policy or on a case-by-case basis.

(6) It is the sole responsibility of the covered entities to track their coverage dates and make monthly insurance payments on time. Failure to submit a payment by its due date may result in the immediate suspension of coverage as determined by DoC policy. Coverage shall remain suspended until the required payment is sufficiently provided.

11 - New Player Coverage
(1) Universality. All players shall be automatically enrolled into Anti-Scam Insurance immediately upon first joining the server and shall continue to be enrolled for 30 days thereafter. This coverage shall expire after the 31st day since a player had first joined the server, but claims regarding incidents that occurred during coverage may be submitted up to a year after coverage had ended.

(2) Minimums. DoC shall ensure new players are covered for a minimum of 33% of their recoverable damages while under New Player Coverage. The exact percentage of coverage shall be set by DoC policy. DoC may further set policy capping payouts for recoverable damages to a specific dollar amount. The maximum dollar amount for such shall not be at a value of less than $10,000.
PART IVIII: AMENDMENTS AND REPEALS
1210 - Amendments
(1) Part VII of the Criminal Code Act is hereby amended to include the following offence:

40 - Falsely claiming debt recovery
Offence Type: Summary
Penalty: Up to 50 Penalty Units
A person commits an offence if the person:
(a) knowingly makes a false claim for debt recovery under the Provisional Debt Recovery Act.
Relevant Law: Act of Congress - Provisional Debt Recovery Act

(21) Part X of the Redmont Civil Code Act is hereby amended to include the following tort:

8. Breach of PDRA Payment Plan
Violation Type: Administrative
Remedy: Up to 25 Civil Penalty Units; Compliance order
A person commits a violation if the person:
(a) fails to adhere to the terms of a PDRA payment plan agreed to under Section 5 of the Provisional Debt Recovery Act.
This violation shall not occur where:
(b) the breach of the PDRA payment plan was anything other than a failure to make monetary payments.
Relevant Law: Act of Congress - Provisional Debt Recovery Act

(12) Subsection (1) of Section 38 of the Bankruptcy Act is repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof:

(1) The Anti-Scam Insurance program under the Debt Recovery Quick Fix Act Provisional Debt Recovery Act remains in force. Insured claimants may seek partial recovery under that program for losses caused by a bankrupt debtor, in addition to or in lieu of recovery from the bankruptcy estate.

1311 - Repeal

(1) The Debt Recover Quick Fix Act is hereby repealed in its entirety.

(2) Any debt recovery proceeding commenced under the Debt Recover Quick Fix Act that has not been completed by the effective date of this Act shall continue under the Debt Recover Quick Fix Act framework until completion.

 

[HatManMC]

A few notes for readers:

1) The removal of section 10(1) (formerly 12(1)) does not require an amendment to the Criminal Code Act because for a reason I cannot confirm, this provision was already removed when the Criminal Code Act was reinstated by former rep _GreyMC. Therefore we can remove this redundant section along with the actual amendments.

2) I'll post this on the #bill section when I get home from work. For some reason the wifi at my work loads the forums but not the Discord. Sorry

3) Though this is certainly not a HALF measure for removal of services in relation to the deficit, this is far from the most extreme measure we could make. This is a first step to removing bloat and prioritizing worthwhile welfare programs.

4) This bill, though technically hurting new players, urges the creation of responsible spending guides and more education for new players to not make mistakes financially. This is consistent with my campaign platform.

5) This bill will especially help with the predicted Trolligarch 3 Wave, estimated for sometime in October. With that influx of new players, two things will happen:
(a) A lot of increase in financial crime (because of Trolli's target audience)
(b) A lot of returning players taking back their pruned funds once reminded of the server.
This will hit the currently self-sufficient Department of Commerce, and by repealing this section, we can ease this burden.