Insurance Law Monthly

Council Regulation 44/2001 lays down jurisdictional rules for disputes where the defendant is domiciled in the European Union. Dornoch Ltd v Westminster International BV [2009] EWHC 201 (Admlty) raised the question of whether the provisions of the regulation allowed one group of underwriters with a dispute against the assured to join other underwriters to the proceedings.

On 11 March 2009, the English and Scottish Law Commissions published a Policy Statement on the vexed question of information communicated by a consumer assured to an intermediary but not accurately transmitted to the insurers. English law currently permits insurers to avoid the policy for non-disclosure in this situation, unless the agent was in some way authorised by the insurers to receive the relevant information on their behalf. The Law Commissions’ Policy Statement indicates their current intentions.

After over four years of consultation and discussion, on 28 February 2009 the long- awaited amendment to China’s Insurance Act was promulgated by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. The amendment embraces various changes relating to both the insurance contract law and the regulation of insurance business in China. The new Act will come to force on 1 October later this year. The impacts of the amendment remain to be seen. The legislation is discussed by Wenhao Han of Barlow Lyde & Gilbert LLP.

The status of the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB) is a matter of some significance but also of some uncertainty. As is well known, the MIB is the legal mechanism used by the UK government to provide compensation to the victims of uninsured and untraced drivers, and takes the form of private agreements between government and the motor insurance industry. The unanswered question is whether those agreements are equivalent to legislative instruments that can be overridden, directly or indirectly, by EC law insofar as they do not meet the requirements of EC law. In McCall v Poulton [2008] EWCA Civ 1263 the Court of Appeal has ruled that these matters should be resolved by the European Court of Justice.

The Court of Appeal has, in Limit No 2 Ltd v Axa Versicherung AG [2008] EWCA Civ 1231, in part allowed an appeal against the decision of Jonathan Hirst QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, [2008] Lloyd’s Rep IR 330. The first instance decision raised a number of important points of principle, but the only real matter of significance on appeal was the approach of the Court of Appeal to the suggestion that a representation made to the insurers could operate in subsequent years. The leading judgment was given by Lord Justice Longmore. Ward and Jackson LJJ were content to agree with that judgment.

In Aspen Insurance UK Ltd v Pectel Ltd [2008] EWHC 2804 (Comm) Mr Justice Teare was asked to construe the claims provisions of a liability policy in order to determine whether a notification provision had been converted into a condition precedent by a general clause deeming all terms and conditions to be of that nature.