Legal News

A Singapore-registered ship collided with a key structural support of the Baltimore harbour bridge at 1.30am local time on 26 March 2024, triggering the collapse of sections of the 1.6-mile crossing and plunging people and vehicles into the water. The Dali container ship had been chartered by shipping giant Maersk and was being operated by Synergy Group. The vessel is insured by Britannia, a London-based marine underwriter. A Britannia spokesperson said they are working closely with the ship’s manager and the relevant authorities to establish the facts and help ensure the situation is handled swiftly and professionally, adding that their thoughts are with everyone affected by the incident. Synergy Group stated in a......

High Court Judge Julia Dias ruled in favour of Delos Shipholding SA Owner of the Win Win, Delos Shipholding SA, together with the vessel’s commercial manager, technical managers and mortgagee, had brought proceedings against six insurers after cover was declined. Dias J dismissed the defence that an exclusion for customs or quarantine detentions permitted avoidance, concluding the arrest and detention stemmed from a governmental policy shift to assert sovereignty over waters, and that the master had no reason to think he was outside international waters. As the shipmaster had neither wilfully breached the law nor elected to anchor within Indonesian territorial seas, the judge held that indemnity should not have been withheld. Commenting on the circumstances, Dias J observed that the Indonesian episode was regrettable and that the vessel’s detention could be described as somewhat unlucky; the practice of detaining ships for alleged illegal...

PE firms fuel 30% rise in 2023 European insurance M& A FTI Consulting reported 574 insurance-sector mergers and acquisitions in 2023, an increase from 435 logged in 2022 and 379 recorded in 2021, over the past two years. The upswing in dealmaking has occurred despite higher interest rates and a downbeat economic backdrop across the region, even as headwinds persist. The firm observed that, although investor appetite appears to have cooled worldwide, Europe bucks the trend for now. It added that present market conditions are not significantly constraining the......

Oaxaca Ltd (trading as Wahaca) v QIC Europe Ltd [2024] EWHC 394 ( Comm) What are the practical implications of this case? This judgment will catch the eye of insurance specialists on multiple fronts. To begin with, it contributes to the expanding line of authorities on coronavirus business interruption claims, alongside the Divisional Court’s ruling in Financial Conduct Authority v Arch Insurance ( UK) Ltd [2020] EWHC 2448 ( Comm) and the Supreme Court’s decision in the same litigation ([2021] UKSC 1). For litigators, this field has become familiar terrain and now supplies abundant direction on the courts’ likely treatment of recurrent questions, most notably issues of construction. That body of guidance appears set to be strengthened again when the Court of Appeal hands down its judgment in the pending appeal from Jacobs J’s decision in London International Exhibition Centre plc v Royal & Sun...

Business adviser and accountancy practice Hazlewoods LLP reports that 34 law firms in England and Wales shut down between November 2022 and October 2023—fewer than the 36 closures in the previous 12 months and the 55 logged in the equivalent window two years before. Despite this decline, the total still marked an uplift of over 140% compared with the 14 closures recorded from November 2018 to October 2019, Hazlewoods noted. The figures rely on the 2024 market report from insurance broker Howden Broking Group Ltd, released in January 2024......

The ruling is rare, partly as reinsurance rows in England are usually settled behind closed doors in arbitration rather than aired in open court. Consequently, such written judgments are infrequent. It also raised an issue over what many UK insurers label ‘non-damage’ Covid-related claims, implying losses where premises sustained no physical injury yet fell within reinsurance protection, that is, claims triggered by the pandemic without any tangible breakage or alteration to structures. The cover in dispute concerned business interruption during the government-ordered lockdown, regardless of any structural impact to the business premises, or any physical alteration to the site. This piece sets out the principal arguments and determinations arising from the case, in summary. The reinsurers appealed arbitral awards obliging them to indemnify their insureds, namely the direct insurers, under their reinsurance contracts. Central questions included whether the surge in coronavirus cases before the lockdown order...

Since then, companies across Britain have been locked in legal wrangles with their insurers over whether business interruption policies should respond to lost revenue during that extraordinary period. Over the next few months, a number of major Court of Appeal cases are listed, with the possibility of further test claims reaching the UK Supreme Court, hinting that an end may finally be in sight for policyholders. Aaron Le Marquer, a partner at Stewarts Law LLP, said he considers we are in the final throes of the coronavirus business interruption fight, at least for direct claims, and that the appeals due this year should settle the outstanding points for policyholders whose losses remain unresolved. He hopes these rulings will bring long-awaited clarity. FCA takes guard The first lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus was announced on 23 March 2020. Soon after, business owners quickly...

HM Revenue and Customs confirmed that Insurance Premium Tax receipts for February 2024 alone reached £1.5bn, lifting the running total for the last 11 months to £8.1bn, an increase on the £7.3bn recorded in 2022–23. The Office for Budget Responsibility expects IPT income to keep rising over the coming years, with more than £370m of extra revenue forecast between the 2023–24 and 2028–29 financial years. “ The bumper tax take highlights both the significance of this duty to the Exchequer and the strain that higher insurance premiums are placing on household finances,” said Cara Spinks, head of insurance consulting at OAC. Price comparison website Confused.com reported that the cost of comprehensive motor insurance climbed by 58% during 2023... Customers ......

Industry association Insurance Europe and the CRO Forum, a risk management firm for the insurance industry, responded on 19 March 2024 to EIOPA’s industry consultation on proposed measures to curb misleading claims about the environmental credentials of financial products. The insurers urged consistent application of supervisory obligations, better co-ordination between directives and solutions to address the limited availability of data. ‘ Establishing a shared interpretation of sustainability statements is crucial for enabling competent authorities to confront greenwashing effectively, while safeguarding consumers and providing legal clarity for insurers,’ Insurance Europe and the CRO Forum noted. EIOPA has outlined new sustainability rules that all insurance and pension providers throughout Europe are required to observe in full. These rest on four core principles in practice. The first is that companies should......

Key takeaways The key points are that the High Court has found that certain prevention of access, non-damage clauses, including those contingent on action by a statutory authority, do respond to regulations introduced in consequence of a pandemic. However, the stance that furlough should be deducted from BI amounts owed to the policyholder, as determined in the High Court’s Stonegate Pub Co Ltd v MS Amlin Corporate Member Ltd ruling on 17 October 2022, is not altered by this judgment. The view that composite policies allow multiple claims on a ‘per premises’ footing, whereas a single insured operating multiple premises may not, as ruled by the High Court in Corbin & King v AXA Insurance UK plc on 25 February 2022, also stands......

OAC referenced data from Swiss Re and Munich Re indicating that worldwide gross premium volumes for cyber insurance expanded by over 20% each year from 2019 to 2022. The insurers predict demand will rise markedly throughout the coming decade. According to the consultancy, several drivers will both push demand higher and elevate the probability of a major loss incident. OAC flagged the broad accessibility of artificial intelligence as a key concern, as the technology has enabled offenders to sharpen how they devise and execute attacks. The increasing number of connected devices has been noted by OAC too......

In this issue: Ukraine conflict Cases and decisions Market practice Types of insurance Regulation Solvency II New and updated content Case trackers Key dates Daily and weekly news alerts Lex Talk®Insurance: a Lexis®Nexis community Ukraine conflict Aviation claims See Practice Note: Ukraine conflict—aviation insurance claims, which explores the principal points of contention arising under aviation insurance policies. It also details further factors for claims under primary policies and under contingent/possessed covers, and has been developed in collaboration with Russell Butland, counsel, and Hugo Flaux, senior associate, at Allen & Overy. Sanctions Refer to Practice Note: EU/ UK financial and trade sanctions for insurers for an overview of financial and trade sanctions, with a focus on measures that expressly prohibit insurance and reinsurance. For practical guidance on the impact of sanctions on insurers and policy wordings, see...

The UK Intellectual Property Office ( UKIPO) blocked Certificial LLC's to protect its digital insurance certificate verification platform The UKIPO concluded the invention was excluded from patentability as it fell under intellectual property provisions barring protection for a ‘scheme, rule or method for doing business’ or for computer programmes. According to the hearing officer, issuing insurance certificates by checking policy requirements against a policy-holder’s cover sits squarely within economic activity; the invention has no purpose beyond that, and is a business method pursued for commercial ends. Certificial filed in 2020 to secure UK protection for the development, relying on an earlier US patent for the same software. As described in the patent materials, the platform performs digital verification of insurance certificates so that users, including brokers and insurance providers, can exchange policy information, manage renewals, cut fraud risk, and share insurance details, the patent...

As reported in the global directors’ and officers’ survey by broker WTW and law firm Clyde & Co, 84% of respondents viewed health and safety as a very or extremely important issue. That share represents a rise from an average of 45% across the preceding three years. Drawing over 900 responses from participants in more than 50 countries, the study found cyber-attack risks were the second-highest concerns for bosses. According to the report, this had been the top risk cited by directors over the last three years. Jeremy Wall, head of global FINEX at WTW, said the research marked the......

WTW Resilience Wrapper The broker stated it will secure funding from the US Agency for International Development ( USAID) to create a climate-resilient insurance solution intended to unlock further investment from the private sector. WTW will set up a facility enabling the US International Development Finance Corp to provide an insurance product that shields its direct loans to private companies from climate-related shocks. This parametric arrangement, called the WTW Resilience Wrapper, is a form of cover that addresses the probability of a specific event happening, rather than compensating for any actual loss that has occurred. WTW noted, for instance, that if an agreed triggering event takes place (such as a cyclone or flood)......

Fire safety reinsurance facility On 13 March 2024, the Association of British Insurers ( ABI) announced that a fire safety reinsurance facility aims to expand insurers’ capacity to cover buildings pending remediation, while stimulating competition to draw more providers into the market. It is intended to bolster available capacity and encourage wider participation across the market. The facility, arranged by Mc Gill and Partners, is due to go live on 1 April 2024. It has backing from the ABI and the British Insurance Brokers’ Association and was created in the aftermath of the Grenfell disaster, when a high-rise residential block burned for 60 hours, resulting in 74 fatalities. The building’s external cladding contributed to the fire’s spread. Steve Mc Gill, founder and chief executive of Mc Gill and Partners, noted that insuring cladded, multi-occupancy properties presenting fire safety risks has long tested the sector. Yet the...

Insurance & Reinsurance weekly highlights-14 March 2024 In this issue: Ukraine conflict Types of insurance Market practice New and updated content Case trackers Key dates Daily and weekly news alerts Lex Talk®Insurance: a Lexis®Nexis community Ukraine conflict Aviation claims- An Irish aircraft operating company has broadened its action by naming 24 additional reinsurers in a bid to recover US$44m for a plane leased to a Russian airline and retained there after the invasion of Ukraine; see the report on more insurers being pursued over a jet stranded in Russia... Types of insurance Construction- The Building Safety Act 2022 ( BSA 2022) received Royal Assent on 28 April 2022, heralding the most far‑reaching shake‑up of building safety in 40 years. It revises how buildings are designed and built, and how high‑rise residential properties are managed, with extensive secondary...

Carlyle Aviation Management Ltd and the lessor Sasof III ( A3) Aviation Ireland DAC indicated, in an amended claim form dated 22 February 2024 that has only recently been made public, that a further two dozen insurers are also accountable for the funds in dispute. UMB Bank NA, the lender that financed the aircraft’s purchase and operation, is likewise a claimant in the case. The claimants first brought proceedings in February 2023 against Convex Insurance UK Ltd and Liberty Corporate Capital Ltd, seeking to recover US$44m linked to a 2006 Airbus A330 leased to the Russian airline I- Fly. They have since expanded the claim to encompass the two dozen additional reinsurers, covering various syndicates and firms, including Arch Insurance ( UK) Ltd......

From 1 October 2023, a broad suite of fresh obligations and processes came into operation across the regime, with the most recent statutory instrument—the Building Safety Act 2022 ( Commencement No 6) Regulations 2024—commencing on 13 January 2024, and further measures anticipated in due course. There have already been multiple judicial decisions addressing the construction and interpretation of important features and central issues of the BSA 2022. In particular, since August 2023 the First-tier Tribunal ( FTT) has already delivered two determinations concerning remediation orders under SA 2022, s 123, increasing the total number of reported decisions to three and supplying welcome guidance on the FTT’s treatment of applications in this developing sphere of practice. The first determination is Sarah Waite v Kedai Ltd, issued on 9 August 2023, and the second is Triathlon Homes LLP v Stratford Village...

According to Lloyd’s fifth Market Policies and Practices dataset, released on 5 March 2024, women now constitute 25% of boards, 28% of executive committees, and 36% of roles reporting directly to the executive committee. Across the 57,000 individuals included in the analysis, the market reported that women account for 43% of the overall workforce. In 2023, women represented nearly half of all new starters, at 46% of hires. Lloyd’s added that its strategy to enhance ethnic diversity across the marketplace is delivering results and gaining traction. Slightly more than one in five recruits in 2023 were from ethnically diverse backgrounds, and overall minority representation across the market’s workforce has risen to 13%......