President Obama’s proposed Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, which he unveiled last month, has been included in the 2011 budget proposal released on Monday, February 1, 2010. …
Read More Proposed Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee Could Affect Large Insurers

President Barack Obama’s recently released proposed Budget of the U.S. Government for the Fiscal Year 2011 (the “Proposed 2011 Budget”) would disallow the deduction for excess non-taxed reinsurance premiums paid to foreign affiliates by a U.S. insurance company.  The Proposed 2011 Budget projects that this disallowance would result in tax receipts of $22 million in 2011, and totaling $223 million over the next five years. 

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Read More Obama Proposes Budget That Would End Foreign Reinsurer Tax Advantages

On Tuesday 2 February 2010, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) went to the Court of Appeal to seek clarification regarding its obligation to co-operate with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This comes as a result of a High Court judgment last year in favour of two companies which said that the FSA had overstepped its powers by carrying out a request from the SEC to recover certain documents. 

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Read More UK: Financial Services Authority Seeks Clarification on Co-Operation with Overseas Regulators

The Connecticut Appellate Court recently affirmed a trial court decision barring a police officer from recovering underinsured motorist benefits because he was not “occupying” a covered motor vehicle at the time he was injured and, consequently, is limited to his workers’ compensation remedy by the exclusivity provision contained in Conn. Gen. Stat. § 31-284 (a). 

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Read More Connecticut Appellate Court: Traffic Cop Not “Occupying” a Covered Vehicle at Time Struck is Limited to Workers’ Compensation Benefits

In Sadler v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, No. 08-35859 (9th Cir. Nov. 4, 2009), the insureds sued their insurer for bad faith, among other claims, arising from their insurer’s refusal to pre-authorize surgery under the personal injury protection (“PIP”) provision of the automobile insurance policy. 

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Read More Ninth Circuit: Automobile Insurer Did Not Engage in Bad Faith by Refusing to Pre-Authorize Treatment Under PIP Coverage

In Mosser Constr. Inc. v. Travelers Indem. Co., Civil Action No. 3:08CV2363 (N.D. Ohio Oct. 26, 2009) (Zouhary, J.), an Ohio District Court was confronted with the question of whether a company that supplied crushed stone backfill to a general contractor is a “subcontractor” within the meaning of the insurance policy, or merely a “material supplier.” 

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Read More Ohio District Court Holds Supplier of Defective Materials is Not a Subcontractor For Purposes of Exception to “Your Work” Exclusion

The Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China recently issued a letter on 30 December 2009 to all Higher People’s Courts in mainland China confirming that ad hoc arbitral awards made in Hong Kong and those arbitral awards made in Hong Kong by the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce and other foreign arbitration institutions are enforceable in mainland China in accordance with the Arrangement concerning Mutual Enforcement of Arbitral Awards between mainland China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region signed in 1999 (the “Arrangement”). 

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Read More HK: Enforceability of Hong Kong Arbitral Awards in Mainland China

Scottish Lion appealed against a judgment delivered by Lord Glennie in which the petition for the proposed scheme of arrangement was dismissed. 

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Read More UK: Scottish Court of Session reverses Lord Glennie’s controversial judgment in the Scottish Lion case