Philip Aspin
Philip Aspin is a commercial barrister at 7 King’s Bench Walk with a broad practice encompassing shipping, insurance and reinsurance, civil fraud, and general commercial litigation. Current or recent instructions include: acting for the Government of Sri Lanka in ongoing Admiralty Court limitation proceedings arising out of one of the most notorious marine casualties of recent years, the loss of the container ship “X-Press Pearl” off the port of Colombo in May 2021; acting for the claimant in a very high value Commercial Court event cancellation reinsurance claim arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is scheduled for trial in early 2026; acting for the successful claimants in an LMAA arbitration arising out of shipbuilding contracts for two LNG carriers, resulting in a damages award of almost US$300m; and acting for the claimant in a Commercial Court civil fraud dispute arising out of a contract for the sale of Greek solar energy parks.
Practice Area
Panel
- Contributing Author
Qualified Year
- 2014
Experience
- 7 King’s Bench Walk (2016 - Present)
1 Contributions by Philip Aspin
PRACTICE NOTES
Construction and Application of Aggregation Clauses in Insurance and Reinsurance under English Law: Unifying Factors, Causation and COVID-19 Business Interruption Jurisprudence
Aggregation—background
Aggregation continues to pose a significant challenge when settling insurance and reinsurance claims, spawning numerous market disputes. Claims managers, arbitrators and even appellate courts often adopt differing interpretations of what particular policy wordings seek to achieve within an aggregation clause. After a run of rulings on familiar aggregation wording in the late 1990s and early 2000s, matters grew quieter. The final waves of litigation arising from the 9/11 tragedy, alongside clusters of solicitors’ and medical negligence claims, illuminated the modern approach to aggregation. More recently, the wealth of insurance disputes sparked by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic—predominantly concerning business interruption losses—has given the courts a platform to revisit the relevant principles.
What are aggregation clauses?
An aggregation clause is a familiar feature of insurance and reinsurance contracts, allowing two or more separate losses covered by the policy to be treated as a single loss for the purposes of the excess or deductible, or for applying the limit of liability...
Insurance & Reinsurance
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