Waiver of disclosure

It is settled law that the duty of utmost good faith, while independent of the obligation of the assured to answer express questions accurately, is nonetheless affected by the scope of express questions. A limited question on a specific point may be treated as having waived disclosure of closely related information. Thus a question as to criminal convictions in the previous five years may be taken as having waived disclosure of earlier convictions. Noblebright Ltd v Sirius International Corporation, 18 January 2007, unreported, a decision of HHJ Hegarty QC, sitting in the Manchester District Registry Mercantile Court of the Queen’s Bench Division, discusses the nature of waiver and the extent to which a specific question as to claims amounts to a waiver of events which could, but did not, give rise to claims.