Captive.com and the "Captive Wire" email newsletter will be observing the upcoming holidays.

In Syzygy Ins. Co. v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2019–34, the Tax Court considered yet another case involving a company that had elected to be taxed under section 831(b) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

Beecher Carlson Insurance Services, LLC (Beecher Carlson), has formed a new Risk Optimization Group that will encompass alternative risk, captive management, actuarial, analytics, claims, and risk control. The group will be led by Jay Sampson, who was promoted to executive managing director.

While Georgia is one of the smaller captive insurance company domiciles in the United States, the state has been one of the fastest-growing domiciles. The total of 49 captives in Georgia at the end of 2018 is more than 5 times its total of 9 captives in 2014. Curious? Learn more today.

As part of our ongoing commitment to provide thoughtful commentary concerning issues impacting captives and the broader insurance markets, we spoke with David Kirkup. Mr. Kirkup serves as chief operating officer and chief financial officer for Captive Alternatives. We had an in-depth conversation about the current state of affairs in the Puerto Rico captive domicile.

Delaware's captive insurance director, Steve Kinion, was recently named to "Captive Review's" Power 50, taking the 9th position on the list for 2018. Mr. Kinion has ranked in the list's top 10 since 2014.

Generali Employee Benefits and Accenture are set to provide a blockchain solution for the employee benefits industry. Through blockchain, captive insurance companies or pooling services participating in the reinsurance process will access the same data and reduce processing errors through the use of smart contracts and automated reconciliation.

Learn the possible implications for captive insurers of the digital transformation of compliance and ethics based on PwC's "2019 State of Compliance Study." We offer our own insights on how this process is likely to impact captive insurance companies and what boards and management should be doing.

France has moved to develop its insurance-linked securities (ILS) market with 157 Re, its first reinsurance sidecar.

Legislation approved April 9, 2019, by Tennessee's House Insurance Committee would make several changes to the state's captive insurance company statute.