Marine Insurance - Assignment of marine policies and the applicable law

(Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG v Five Star General Trading LLC, May 2000, forthcoming in Lloyd’s Rep IR)

In English law, marine policies are freely assignable, and the formalities for assignment under s 50(2) of the Marine Insurance Act 1906 are minimal. Written notice need not be given to the insurers, although notice is desirable in order to preserve the assignee’s priority over later assignees. In Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG v Five Star General Trading LLC , May 2000, forthcoming in Lloyd’s Rep IR, the formalities for assignment under English law had been complied with. The problem was that the policy, while governed by English law, was assigned in France to a French assignee in circumstances which did not satisfy the French rules for the validity of an assignment. The question before Mr Justice Longmore was whether the validity of the assignment was to be tested against English law or French law.