The High Court has handed down three new judgments on BI insurance claims resulting from Covid-19: Stonegate Pub Co Ltd v MS Amlin Corporate Member Ltd [2022] EWHC 2548 (Comm), Various Eateries Trading Ltd (formerly Strada Trading Ltd) v Allianz Insurance Plc [2022] EWHC 2549 (Comm) and Greggs v Zurich Insurance Plc [2022] EWHC 2545 (Comm). These cases are another reminder of the complexities of BI insurance and the particular challenges created by Covid-19 ...
Recently, Dinsmore has noticed an uptake in claimant allegations that an employer has caused an accident due to violation of a specific safety requirement (VSSR). A VSSR award is an additional award paid to the employee by the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) billed directly to state fund employers or paid directly by a self-insured employer ...
Armando Aznar J. of the Court of Québec recently rendered a harsh judgment against an insurance company.1 Although the amounts at stake were minimal, the decision may have a significant impact on insurers. This is one of the rare judgments where an insurer was ordered to pay exemplary and moral damages for having made allegations in the pleadings based on unjustified suspicions resulting in damages to the integrity and honesty of its insured ...
At the time, most captive owners (and their advisers) were attracted by Bermuda's perceived economic, social and political stability, its strong infrastructure, its close proximity to New York and a legal system that tended to follow the English common law and provided for an ultimate right of appeal to the Privy Council in the U.K ...
Managing General Agent (“MGA”) Agreements are unique and can be exceedingly complex. They often include detailed underwriting guidelines and strict limits on an MGA’s authority. After all, an MGA is authorized to bind an insurer on substantial risks often with little direct supervision by the insurer. While no two MGA Agreements are the same, all must incorporate certain required provisions. The NAIC has promulgated the Managing General Agents’ Act (NAIC Model No ...
Sponsored wellness plans that include incentives to employees who voluntarily disclose personal health information as part of disability-related inquiries or medical examinations are in legal limbo after the EEOC removed the underlying rules from the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (“GINA”) ...
The pandemic has not slowed down the arrival of self-driving vehicles on our roads. This technological advancement is becoming more and more commonplace, giving rise to a need for deep reflection, especially in the automobile insurance industry ...
The courts have always considered Quebec’s class action legislation to be strictly procedural and not modifying substantive law. Normally a person can only sue if he has a legal relationship with the defendant, meaning that he has a personal right of action. Thus, in the case of Bouchard v. Agropur coopérative et al,1 Mr. Justice J. Viens refused to authorize Bouchard to institute a class action against dairies from which he had not purchased milk. However, Mr. Justice M ...
We publish the new edition of the newsletter on Banking and Finance, Capital Markets and Insurance Law in Angola for the 2nd quarter of 2022 brings together the most significant new developments in these areas. In this newsletter, you can find legislative news regarding the National Bank of Angola, President of the Republic, Government/Parliament and CMC ...
The Chinese insurance market has grown considerably after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. For example, China’s annual premium income has increased from 210.9 billion yuan in 2001 to 703.6 billion yuan in 2007 and for the first half of 2008 insurers in China have collected premium income of 561.79 billion yuan which exhibits continuing growth ...
On February 12, 2024, the Court of Appeal of Quebec handed down its decision in Société d?assurance Beneva inc. c. Bordeleau,1 dealing in particular with the burden of proof incumbent on an insurer when it denies coverage on the basis of an insured?s intentional fault, and an award of damages against an insurer for breach of its duty of good faith. The facts This decision was rendered further to a dispute between Société d?assurance Beneva inc ...
Dallas Bar Association Tort and Insurance Practice Section Today-more than ever-corporate management is under attack. In the wake of the Enron debacle, corporate decisions are more carefully scrutinized, and the conduct of the company’s directors and officers are now constantly under the watchful eyes of investors, creditors, and government regulators ...
All eyes were on health care in 2020, as the industry faced unprecedented challenges presented by the global coronavirus pandemic. Stories and images of overburdened frontline health care workers dominated the news cycle for most of the year, and the rapid development of one or more seemingly effective vaccines has engendered a cautious optimism for a return to normalcy in 2021 ...
The Securities Act [SA] allows the Autorité des marchés financiers [the “AMF”] to order investigations to ensure compliance with the SA and to repress contraventions which may be committed1. This is the context in which the Court of Appeal handed down a decision2 on June 22, 2012 going to the very heart of the role played by the AMF’s investigators and the scope of their powers during examinations conducted in connection with an investigation ...
On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (“ARPA”) which is another coronavirus stimulus package aimed at speeding up the United States’ recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic ...
Bill 96 ? An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec (the ?Act?) - was adopted on May 12, 2022 and assented to on June 1, 2022, its effective date. Certain provisions are already in force; for other provisions, a transitional period ranging from several months to three years will apply ...
On April 20, 2022, the government issued Order in Council 656-2022, which makes significant amendments to the Regulation respecting categories of insurance contracts and classes of insureds that may derogate from the rules of articles 2500 and 2503 (the ?Regulation?). The original version of the draft regulation with the same title (the ?Draft Regulation?) was the subject of one of our publications last September ...
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Texas denied Factory Mutual’s Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings, finding that the plaintiffs adequately alleged that the presence of COVID-19 on their property caused covered physical loss or damage in the case of Cinemark Holdings, Inc. v. Factory Mutual Insurance Co., No. 4:21-CV-00011 (E.D. Tex. May 5, 2021) ...
The fallout from the Illinois Supreme Court’s January 25, 2019, opinion in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., 19 IL 12316, continues.Rosenbach settled the dispute of who qualifies as an “aggrieved person” under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), and in doing so opened the floodgates for this litigation to proliferate ...
Thousands of denied claims and hundreds of lawsuits pending around the country are testament to the fact that business interruption coverage for losses sustained during the COVID-19 pandemic depends on the existence of “physical loss or damage ...
When the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic became apparent in March 2020, an avalanche of articles appeared in which many insurers took the position that there was no coverage for losses associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus due either to a lack of physical loss or damage to property necessary to trigger coverage under most commercial property policies, or to the effect of virus exclusions found in many such policies ...
On Thursday, May 27, 2021, article 2503 of the Civil Code of Québec was amended as part of the adoption of Bill 82, titled An Act respecting mainly the implementation of certain provisions of the budget speech of 10 March 2020, which we had discussedin a publication last December ...
As individuals, businesses, and governments continue to take actions to mitigate or contain the worldwide impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), it is likely that performance of contracts agreed to long before the emergence of the pandemic will become difficult, if not entirely impossible ...
