§ 25-3309.Secretary of State; issue certificate of registration or renewal of registration; refusal to issue; grounds; suspend, revoke, or refuse renewal; temporary certificate; submission of data; contents; report.

Section 25-3309 closes out the act’s registration and enforcement scheme. The Secretary of State must issue a certificate of registration to a company that complies with the application requirements of section 25-3307, and must issue a renewal on the same basis. But the Secretary of State can refuse to issue a certificate if the company’s character, fitness, or financial responsibility give reason to believe the business will not be run on a level, above-board footing consistent with the purposes of the act, and can suspend, revoke, or refuse to renew a certificate for conduct that would have justified denial in the first place, or for violating the prohibited-acts provisions of section 25-3304.

Any denial, suspension, revocation, or refusal to renew requires proper notice and an opportunity for a hearing under the Administrative Procedure Act. While an application or renewal is pending, the Secretary of State may issue a temporary certificate of registration so a company is not left in limbo.

The section also builds in ongoing oversight. Each registered company must annually submit data — the number and dollar amount of its fundings, how many required repayment, the amounts charged to consumers including annual percentage fees and itemized fees, and the number and dollar amount of cases where the company’s recovery fell short of what it had contracted for. The Secretary of State then compiles that information into an annual report submitted electronically to the Clerk of the Legislature and the Judiciary Committee, describing the state of nonrecourse civil litigation funding activity in Nebraska.