Events

Virtual Lecture

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Prevailing research suggests that private organizations are not significantly changing their behaviour in response to the huge threat from cyber risks. Although many organizations have formal cybersecurity policies in place, the majority believe they are insufficiently prepared for a data breach and have not devoted adequate time and resource to protect consumers’ electronic and paper-based information from data breaches. Drawing from extensive interviews and research, Prof Talesh explains why cyber insurers have not been more successful in curtailing breaches. He offers a “new institutional theory of insurance”, which explains how insurers shape the content and meaning of law among organizations that purchase insurance. In response to vague and fragmented privacy laws and a lack of strong government oversight, insurers offer cyber insurance and a series of risk-management services to their customers. These services convey legitimacy to the public and to insureds, but fall short of improving the robustness, rendering them largely symbolic. All that high-level technical tools introduced by cyber insurers and security companies have accomplished is to institutionalize a norm that policyholders need these tools to avoid cybersecurity incidents. Regulators and rating agencies defer to cyber insurers, without evidence that these tools actually improve security. This bubbles up even into private and governmental standards, regulations and laws that allow insurers tremendous space to shape cybersecurity policy in society. Insurance companies and affiliated entities are influencing what privacy law and cybersecurity compliance means on the ground. Prof Talesh makes recommendations for how insurers and governments can work together to improve cybersecurity and foster greater algorithmic justice.

Our Speaker

Shauhin Talesh is professor of law at the University of California, Irvine. He also holds appointments in Sociology and Criminology, Law & Society. His research interests include the empirical study of law and business organizations, dispute resolution, consumer protection, insurance, and the relationship between law and social inequality. Professor Talesh is considered one of the leading scholars on organizational responses to law and compliance and the relationship between insurance, regulation and inequality. His most recent research focuses on how cyber insurance and insurance companies shape cybersecurity and privacy law compliance among private organizations. He previously published multiple articles on how insurance companies, through employment practice liability insurance, construct the meaning of compliance with anti-discrimination laws. In 2019, Professor Talesh was selected for the inaugural class of UC Irvine Beall Applied Innovation Faculty Innovation Fellows, a program established “to recognize faculty who have a record of translating their society-impacting research as well as to make them ambassadors for UCI’s innovation culture.” In 2022, Professor Talesh was elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF). Membership is limited to just one percent of lawyers licensed to practice in each jurisdiction. Talesh’s scholarship has appeared in multiple law and peer-reviewed social science journals including Law and Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, and Law & Policy, and has won multiple awards in Sociology, Political Science and Law & Society.

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IN-PERSON EVENT AT LLOYDS OLD LIBRARY

Commercial insurance products are designed to cover the wide range of risks to which businesses operating in diverse industries around the world are exposed. While the scope of coverage under insurance products may differ, all insurance is predicated on the concept of “fortuity” – the idea that insurance covers risks resulting from chance events. This presentation will address fortuity in contexts ranging from manufacturing defect lawsuits to terrorist funding lawsuits, as well as in relation lawsuits arising from emerging risks such as climate change, opiod sales, and gun violence.

Our Speakers:

Richard H. Nicolaides, Jr.
Nicolaides Fink Thorpe Michaelides Sullivan LLP

Richard Nicolaides’ practice is focused exclusively on the complex business and legal issues of the global insurance industry. Richard works with insurers in Bermuda, London, Tokyo, and the U.S. to evaluate insurance coverage issues and resolve insurance coverage disputes involving risks under a variety of insurance products. He represents his clients in federal and state trial and appellate courts, as well as before arbitration panels, across the U.S. and abroad. Richard is a Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University School of Law. In addition, he serves as the president of AIDA US, the US chapter of the Association Internationale de Droit des Assurances (the International Insurance Law Association) and frequently lectures on emerging risks and other insurance-related issues.

Monica T. Sullivan
Nicolaides Fink Thorpe Michaelides Sullivan LLP

As managing partner and chair of the Executive Committee, Monica Sullivan oversees Nicolaides Fink Thorpe Michaelides Sullivan LLP’s operations and strategic direction. In addition to her leadership role, she maintains an active insurance coverage practice focused on litigation and arbitration, advising an international client base on a broad range of matters. Monica’s diverse experience includes counseling clients on claims administration and policy analysis, as well as representing them in complex disputes involving commercial general liability, managed care and healthcare, and professional liability matters. She also brings extensive experience to the Bermuda market, having served as U.S. claims counsel to Bermuda insurers for over 30 years. In this capacity, she has managed arbitrations both domestically and internationally.

Important – For admittance to Lloyd’s, please make sure to bring along your Lloyd’s pass if you have one or photo ID (driving licence, passport or work ID with company logo and full name).

We look forward to welcoming you to The Old Library, Lloyd’s Building, 1 Lime Street, London, EC3M 7HA.

Hybrid: UCL Law Faculty Bentham House, 4-8 Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG and online.

Time-travel with us to the year 1826 and learn how case law and legislation emerging then have shaped English insurance law and the UK insurance industry.

Speakers:

• Prof. Robert Merkin KC (University of Reading)
• Prof Philip Rawlings (Queen Mary, University of London and UCL)

Chair: Dr Franziska Arnold-Dwyer (UCL)

About the event:

As we are celebrating UCL’s bicentenary, we explore what insurance law looked like to lawyers and City merchants in 1826. Then as now, insurance underpins trade, (marine) transport, and innovation, and is interconnected with social and economic policies. Whilst insurance contract law set and continues to provide the default rules for contracts between insureds and insurers, legislation touching on the regulation of insurers has pursued a variety of policy goals and has used different regulatory tools over the centuries. Prof Robert Merkin’s talk will be delivered as an ‘1826 Insurance Law Update’ and will, in addition to examining the significance of the cases and legislation in 1825, provide a wider context on the state of Britain’s trade and colonial expansion at this time. In his talk Professor Rawlings will discuss how developments in insurance brought fundamental changes to company law in the 1820s, opening insurance to joint-stock companies, and how these developments  were part of a broader shift in social and economic thinking on issues ranging from the slave trade to university education.

The lecture will be followed by drinks.

About the speakers:

To anyone in the insurance world, neither speaker needs any introduction.

Prof Robert Merkin KC is a Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Reading and has held honorary and visiting professorships at numerous universities abroad. He is the author of leading texts on insurance law in the UK and a number of common law jurisdictions. He is also the author of Marine Insurance Law: a Legal History (Edward Elgar, 2021) and various articles on insurance law history. He edits the Lloyd’s Law Reports, the Journal of Business Law, Insurance Law Monthly and Arbitration Law Monthly, and is on the editorial board of a number of journals in Britain and other countries. He is also on the panels of the international arbitral institutions of Singapore, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Prof Philip Rawlings is Emeritus Professor at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, QMUL, and Honorary Professor at UCL. Previously, he was Professor of Finance Law at UCL and then the inaugural Roy Goode Professor of Commercial Law and Deputy Director at CCLS. He was also a committee member of the British Insurance Law Association. Professor Rawlings is the author of more than 80 books and papers, including the book, Insurance Law: Doctrines and Principles.

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