Highlands UK scheme

A SCHEME of arrangement has been put in place covering the primary business of Highlands Insurance Co (UK). PricewaterhouseCoopers joint administrators Dan Schwarzmann and Mark Batten noted the scheme used a UK mechanism “to provide certainty and finality to both a UK and a US company”. Under the scheme, primary policyholders will be compensated. They are forbidden to take further legal action against Highlands Insurance Co (US). As part of the agreement, $13m will be paid from the US Highlands to the UK company. Schwarzmann said that policyholders should now be paid in full by no later than July 2010. Highlands UK was placed into administration in November 2007. As of the date of its last audited balance sheet, the company had technical liabilities of about £77m. Highlands Insurance in the US, which was originally a captive insurer of Texas-based oil-services company Halliburton before being spun off in late 1995, has been subject to bankruptcy proceedings since October 2002.