Past events

We are delighted to announce our next virtual lecture of a brand-new series.

Our second lecture will be given by Professor Tom Baker on 22nd May 2020 on The Restatement of Liability Insurance.

In May 2019 the American Law Institute published the Restatement of the Law Liability Insurance, a project ten years in the making that represented the influential ALI’s first foray into the insurance field. Tom Baker, the Reporter for the Restatement, will explain the ALI and its Restatements, and he will offer his views on why this Restatement appears so vexing to some leaders in the insurance industry.

Tom Baker is the William Maul Measey Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is on the faculty of the Law School and the Wharton School of Business. He is the Reporter for the American Law Institute’s recently published Restatement of the Law Liability Insurance. He has conducted research on many topics in the insurance field, including property and casualty insurance, health insurance, the behavioural economics of insurance, and the historical development of insurance ideas and institutions. His most recent completed research project examined the rise of the insurance runoff market. His current research focuses on cyber insurance, aggregate insurance litigation, and the regulation of automated financial decision support. From 1997 to 2008 he was the inaugural Connecticut Mutual Professor and Director of the Insurance Law Centre at the University of Connecticut. In August 2013 he received the Robert B. McKay award, a lifetime scholarly achievement award given by the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section of the American Bar Association. His B.A. and J.D. are from Harvard University.

Business interruption insurance seeks to return to the assured the amount of profit it would have earned had there been no interruption to the business’ operations. Needless to say, in recent weeks the cover for business interruption has been under specific scrutiny. In this seminar, we will discuss issues relating to the interpretation of typical business interruption policy wordings, with reference to a number of different common law cases. The first key issue is to identify the clear purpose of the business interruption clause in a policy. Such clauses will vary from policy to policy. However, a close analysis of the relevant case-law reveals some common problems that derive from such wordings. Some of those issues are

• What does trigger the operation of the business interruption policy (What is an insured peril under a business interruption cover?)
• How are the principles of ‘causation’ analysed in respect of the business interruption cover?
• What does amount to
  1. property
  2. damage
  3. loss
• The significance of the word ‘physical’ (does the business interruption clause have to be consequent upon a physical damage or loss?)

This interactive seminar that includes a number of case studies will conclude by the determination of whether the COVID-19 related business interruption claims are unprecedented.

Ozlem Gurses is an academic at King’s College London where she teaches insurance and reinsurance law. She studied law at Istanbul University, and completed her masters’ degree in Maritime Law and PhD in Reinsurance Law at the University of Southampton. Ozlem is the author of Reinsuring Clauses (Informa, 2010), Marine Insurance Law (Routledge, 2016, 2^nd ed), The Law of Compulsory Motor Vehicle Insurance (Informa, 2019) and she is the updating author of The Insurance of Commercial Risks (Sweet and Maxwell, 2016 5^th ed). She is a Committee Member of BILA, she sits on the Presidential Council of AIDA and she is the Vice-Chair of the Reinsurance Working Party of AIDA.

We are pleased to announce ‘BILA Book Prize Winner’ Paul Reed QC, will be discussing “Boundaries between Construction All Risks, Public Liability and Professional Indemnity insurance” at our next speaker event on 16^th March 2020 at Lloyd’s between 1.00 p.m. and 2.00 p.m.

Paul is a leading commercial silk specialising in insurance, construction, professional liability and property damage. His books on Construction All Risks Insurance (3^rd edition 2020) and Construction and Professional Indemnity Insurance (2^nd edition 2021)  published by Sweet & Maxwell are unique reference guides offering a comprehensive analysis of Construction and Engineering insurance and they have respectively been nominated for and winner of the BILA Book prize.

Paul is highly regarded and has an extensive international and domestic practice, working regularly in the Middle East, the Caribbean and the Asia Pacific region as well as other areas. This year he was shortlisted as Construction Silk of the Year in the Legal 500 Awards. He is also an occasional post graduate tutor and lecturer at Kings College and an experienced mediator, adjudicator and arbitrator.

Nick is a partner in the aerospace team of HFW. He has 35 year’s extensive worldwide experience of aviation and space industry insurance/liability and commercial issues and in depth experience with the related international conventions and organisations.

Nick is consistently recommended by Chambers UK, where he has been lauded as “an aviator, man and boy, with decades of experience in all aspects of aviation and space litigation”. Chambers UK 2017 says “The ‘very good’ and ‘commercially focused’ Nicholas Hughes (Band 1) is a leading aviation practitioner with extensive experience in helicopter insurance matters.” Clients are reported to consider him the “go-to aerospace expert”, someone who is “competent, sensible and knows how to litigate” and “a market leader” (Chambers UK 2015)

Nick is consistently recommended by The International Who’s Who of Aviation lawyers, currently as one of the top 10 aviation lawyers in the world.

In 2017, the UK’s Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) issued supervisory statement SS4/17 in which it set out its expectation that all regulated insurance and reinsurance firms must have adequate capital provisions and reduce unaccounted for non-affirmative (“silent” or “unintended”) cyber risks exposure. In response, the International Underwriters Association (IUA) and Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA) have issued new cyber exclusions in 2018 and 2019 applicable to both marine and non-marine traditional lines of insurance.

Celso de Azevedo of Penningtons Manches Cooper and Peter Wedge of Swiss Re, who are both members of the Cyber Insurance Association, will review the most often currently used cyber exclusions in traditional lines of insurance (e.g. LMA2914/5 in non-marine property insurance as well CL380 in marine and offshore insurance) and contrast these exclusions with the newly issued cyber exclusions.

In a landmark speech at Lloyd’s in 2015, Mark Carney warned of the systemic risk that climate change could pose for the financial services industry. He described three categories of climate risk: physical, transition, and liability.

In this presentation Clyde & Co will explore all three categories and, in particular, the various ways in which liability can arise. They will look at some of the cases already making their way through the courts and also outline the regulatory position, including the PRA’s recent Supervisory Statement.

Nigel handles international insurance and reinsurance disputes and drafts and advises on (re)insurance wordings, including parametric and transactional contracts.

He leads Clyde & Co’s global campaign on Resilience and Climate Change Risk, building a body of know-how and raising awareness of climate-related legal duties and potential liabilities. He co-authored the firm’s 2018 Reports on Parametric Insurance and Inclusive Insurance – exploring the role of innovative risk transfer in closing the global protection gap – and has led Clyde & Co’s 2018/19 series of reports on the rising tide of climate change liability and duties of care.

Laura advises on coverage issues and disputes across all forms of financial lines and directors and officers liability insurance. Her experience encompasses a variety of complex losses and liabilities in many different jurisdictions, often involving combinations of civil, regulatory and criminal proceedings and investigations.

Neil heads the Global Product Liability and Recall practice at Clyde & Co. He specialises in product liability and recall, environmental liability and professional liability. He is a first port of call for complex and cross-border product liability claims and he acts as coverage, defence and monitoring counsel in all parts of the world.

Neil has written and lectured extensively on the risks and opportunities of climate change.  He is particularly interested in the evolving relationship between product and environmental liability.  Neil is currently advising a number of international insurers on their exposure to climate litigation and the policy response to existing claims.

Book now to hear David Chadwick discuss Political Risk. David qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales in 1992. His practice has a particular focus on policies involving political and financial risk, professional indemnity and insurance and reinsurance.

A specialist in insurance, David has vast experience advising political risk insurers in relation to the adjustment and defence of claims involving all types of political risk policies, such as confiscation, expropriation, nationalisation and deprivation, and contract frustration and contingency (change of law) policies. He has also advised clients on credit insurance policies and has acted on a range of political violence and ‘discord risk’ claims, building up significant experience involving multi-jurisdictional claims in Africa, EMEA and Latin America.

Brexit Day is currently scheduled for 31 October 2019, although it remains open to question whether, when and on what terms Brexit will take place. BILA has assembled a group of expert speakers to discuss the future of the London Market after Brexit.  They will look at:

• The London Market’s actions to date and whether they suffice:
  • New EU carriers/Part VII transfers/UK branches/broker restructuring.
  • Have policyholders been prejudiced?
  • How has Brexit affected international open market placements into the UK?
  • Issues arising from Part VII transfers. What are the alternatives?
  • How is London Market business to be serviced?
  • Where will disputes be heard? Will UK law and courts lose out?
  • Will it matter if the UK exits without a deal?
• After Brexit: new ways of conducting business; technology; and new legal and regulatory structures.
  • The index linked securities market – does the UK’s legal infrastructure respond and can it be improved? Will English law be used in contracts? Where/how (court or arbitration) will disputes be heard? Does Brexit affect the developing ILS market?
  • Products sold via the internet – how does law and jurisdiction work with cross border sales? How can English law and dispute resolution processes stay in the lead?
  • Large international open market placements – what long term effects will Brexit have? How should London remain a hub?
  • Regulation of London carriers and brokers – can this be improved or streamlined post Brexit? Which EU regulations/directives can be improved to make London more attractive? How can the regulators assist London to remain a hub?

Speakers include:
David Kendall – Partner,
Cooley John Abramson – General Counsel,
Travelers James Smethurst – Partner,
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Clarissa Franks – Managing Director,
Marsh Nigel Brook – Partner,
Clyde & Co Professor James Davey – Professor of Contract and Commercial Law, University of Southampton
Malcolm Newman – Managing Director, SCOR SE EMEA Hub
Noona Barlow – UK Head of Claims,
AIG Rob Lumley – Director and Co-Founder, Insurtech Gateway

Venue: Lloyd’s Old Library
Registration: 15:00
Conference start: 15:30
Drinks: 17:45 – 19:00

At a time of considerable change, this lecture will reflect on key case law and regulatory developments in 2019. Highlights include the review of pricing in general insurance by the FCA, ‘use of a vehicle’ in motor insurance, ‘malicious acts’ in marine insurance, and actions for fraudulent insurance claims beyond ‘forfeiture’.

James Davey is Professor of Contract & Commercial Law at the University of Southampton.