Search

Insurance companies often need to go through restructuring for various reasons. Such restructuring can happen in company law through the mechanism of M&A, or under EU legislation via portfolio transfer (see e.g. Article 14 of Directive 2002/83/EC and Article 12 of Directive 92/49/EEC in the field of non-life insurance). This chapter discusses reorganising, restructuring and winding-up of insurance companies, as well as insurance portfolio transfers by means of company law mechanisms (M&A) and under the Cross-Border Mergers Directive, as well as under the Solvency II Directive. It then goes on to discuss the position under Greek law, and uses as a case study the winding-up of Aspis Pronia in 2009 and the transfer of the insurance undertakings’ portfolios. The analysis will allow us to identify that the level of insurance portfolio transfers harmonisation in the EU is not as high as expected, and that a common framework and harmonisation is needed.

The principle of independence and impartiality has been formed, over the course of time, into a well-established and simultaneously into a fundamental duty of the arbitrator. However, the question, which arises, pertains to what kind of duty it is, namely either a legal duty or one resembling professional ethics. As the case is with judges, arbitrators also shall not be biased or even give the impression of being biased. Unlike judges, however, arbitrators are nominated by the parties to the arbitration and therefore, concerns with regards to possible bias or lack of impartiality are likely to be raised to a greater extent. The principal triptych, which overrides this multifaceted subject, concerns mainly questions of disclosure, repeat appointments and apparent bias. The arbitrator’s duty to remain unbiased and impartial is stipulated as a soft\ud law rule in the IBA Guidelines of 2014, which serves as the point of reference and according to which there has to be an equilibrium between the principle of party autonomy and the tribunal’s independence. In the present paper, a critical analysis is conducted as to the formation of the\ud landscape regarding arbitrator’s bias, before and after the landmark decision of the Supreme Court in Halliburton Co v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd (2020) UKSC 48. The lessons to be learned from this judgment are comparatively assessed alongside the position of arbitration laws of England, India, and China, and by illustrating how the duty has been\ud incorporated and appeared in arbitration practice through the lenses of the arbitration laws in each of the examined legal regimes. Resultantly, the Arbitration Act 1996, the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 1996, the Chinese Arbitration Law as well as the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) Rules,\ud which apply to foreign-related arbitrations, will be analyzed in conjunction with case-law in the above-mentioned jurisdictions.

Insurance law is multidisciplinary by nature, as it necessarily must interact with other disciplines, such as actuarial sciences or finance. However, this multi-disciplinarity also concerns the intersection with other branches of law. Most of the insurance undertakings are corporations and, as such, they are subject to corporate law rules, while insurance law is increasingly taking on a transnational connotation in regulating the organisation and activity of insurance companies. The combination of company law and insurance-specific rules is at the heart of this investigation. This book is a collection of contributions from authors with different legal cultures, and it aims to identify the legal issues that arise from the intersection of these two disciplines, i.e., insurance law and corporate/company law. The issues entailed are examined mainly based on the European Union (EU) law, although there are also contributions from other legal systems that enrich the perspective with which to approach those issues. The book includes two parts. The first part collects six contributions that analyse different profiles of the system of governance of insurance undertakings. The analysis concerns the regulations introduced by the Directive Solvency II and the corporate law of relevant EU jurisdictions. However, one of the chapters contributed tackles the issue from the perspective of Singaporean law that aspires to become the leading (re)insurance and risk transfer hub in Asia. The second part contains eight contributions that examine the intersections between the insurance business and corporate law. They include extraordinary corporate operations, supervision, reporting, customer relations, and claims handling management, whilst one contribution focuses on private international law issues. Again, the issues entailed are examined mainly based on and from the perspective of the European Union (EU) law. Still, the supranational nature of the insurance business also allows the experiences of other legal systems to be included in the analysis, since they can provide valuable insights to other regulators. This book fills a gap in the legal literature that has examined the two branches of law, i.e., insurance regulation and corporate law, separately so far. With the objective difficulty of examining rules with different levels of transnational harmonisation, the effort made is to provide as much a “unitary” vision as possible of the legal issues entailed and herein examined. This effort is made, nonetheless, with the awareness that those issues are mainly perceived and managed as such in practice. It is left upon the reader to undertake the task of evaluating the efficacy of this effort. The law stands as on 27th April 2021., peer-reviewed

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that business and contractual relationships have been disrupted. The pandemic has also meant that there are legal liabilities owed to disruption, cancellations, or to the imposed halt of everyday life. We discuss force majeure and frustration in contract in cases where circumstances have changed due to unnatural events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the pandemic on business interruption, and liability insurance. The scope of insurance coverage for catastrophic risks and the civil liability insurance as well as business interruption coverage are discussed and conclusions on the role of insurance in the COVID-19 pandemic are drawn, as the body of case law and the pandemic per se continues to sweep humanity in an unprecedented way. La pandemia de COVID-19 ha significado la interrupción de las relaciones comerciales y contractuales. La pandemia también ha supuesto que surjan responsabilidades legales debidas a las interrupciones, cancelaciones o al cese impuesto a la vida cotidiana. En este artículo se analizan la fuerza mayor y la interrupción de contratos en casos donde las circunstancias han cambiado debido a eventos no naturales como la pandemia de COVID-19 y el impacto que esta tiene en la interrupción de los negocios y seguro de responsabilidad. Se discute el alcance de la cobertura del seguro para riesgos catastróficos y el seguro de responsabilidad civil, así como la cobertura de interrupción del negocio y se extraen conclusiones sobre el papel de los seguros en la pandemia COVID-19, ya que los casos y la pandemia per se continúan barriendo a la humanidad de una manera sin precedentes.

Marine Insurance is considered one of the oldest of the many forms of commercial protection. It has flourished through the establishment of the institution of the so-called “coffee-houses”, wherein “underwriting” was being conducted and from where the evolution and dominance of the Lloyd’s has stemmed as the world’s most famous insurance market. Marine insurance contracts are special in that they have special characteristics and also because they are contracts of indemnity. This thesis examines the principle of indemnity within marine insurance contracts. The legal problems related to the principle, in theory and in practice, are discussed and evaluated through the citation and critical analysis of the relevant case law in the UK as well in some of the most representative common law and continental law regimes, together with an analysis comprising thoughts and proposals on possible extensions, further research options, and a possible future law reform. This thesis comprises of six (6) chapters: Chapter One (1) discusses the history of marine insurance in the UK and the policy reasoning behind the enactment of the various UK statutes as well as the history, legal framework and the way marine insurance is regulated in the other jurisdictions to be examined. Chapter Two (2) discusses the concept and importance of insurable interest in relation to indemnity marine insurance contracts and the coverage offered under such contracts both in the UK and in the other legal systems. Chapter Three (3) discusses types of losses in the UK and the rest of the law regimes examined. Chapter Four (4) discusses valuation and the measure of indemnity available according to the type of contract each time as well as the case of double insurance, both in the UK and in the rest of the legal systems examined. Chapter Five (5) examines the legal issues related to the rights of insurer on payment, in all jurisdictions. Chapter Six (6) draws some general comparative conclusions and also explores the scope and nature of a reform in the area, in light also of the ongoing attempt for unification, undertaken since 1998 by the Comité Maritime Internationale (C.M.I.).