Insurance Law Monthly

The decision of Eder J in Ted Baker plc and Another v AXA Insurance UK plc and Others [2012] EWHC 1406 (Comm), although ultimately turning on the proper construction of the terms of the policy and the particular facts, provides a valuable lesson to underwriters to ensure that the terms of the policy do not provide cover wider than that intended. The decision is discussed by Mark Cannon QC of 4 New Square.

In the March 2011 of Insurance Law Monthly there was discussion of the decision of Reyes J in New World Harbourview Hotel Co Ltd v Ace Insurance Ltd, April 2010, Hong Kong CFI. This was an important judgment on the operation of business interruption policies in the context not of material damage but rather of loss of business due to disease.

Although EU law demands – in the Consolidated Motor Insurance Directive, European Parliament and Council Directive 2009/103/EC – liability insurance for the victims of road traffic accidents, that law does not dictate the circumstances in which liability might arise. Almeida v Companhia de Seguros Fidelidade-Mundial SA; Carvalheira v Fundo de Garantia Automóvel Case C-300/10 is the most recent case to draw this distinction.

The jurisdiction in which an insurance case is heard is often critical to the outcome, as the court will apply its own choice of law rules to the contract and those rules may point to an applicable law whose content is quite different from that of English law. Jurisdictional battles are thus fought with some intensity.