January 2005/1

Robert Stearns, a senior vice-president and excess casualty broker at Marsh's New York office, pleaded guilty to a felony fraud charge last week in relation to New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer's investigations into bid-rigging.

ACE USA chief executive Susan Rivera became the second most high profile casualty from the investigations into insurance industry practices following the ousting of MMC chief executive Jeffrey Greenberg in October 2004 when ACE Ltd announced her resignati

Little over a week after receiving a request for information on the sale of its "non-traditional or loss mitigation insurance products" from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Berkshire Hathaway unit General Re revealed that it has been subpoen

MMC is close to restructuring its relationship with its private equity arm, MMC Capital, less than a month after the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) requested information about the unit.

A second dispute, which went to arbitration in November 2004, saw London market reinsurers victorious in a dispute over professional indemnity reinsurance cover broked by Carvill for the Attorneys Liability Assurance Society (ALAS), a US-based mutual insu

But uncertainty remains on how firm the company’s walk-away option is on remaining asbestos exposures... ACE Ltd has partially lifted the asbestos albatross which haunted the company's reserves ever since it acquired CIGNA Property & Casualty business

XL D&O dispute heads for court; ALAS settles with reinsurers The acrimonious dispute between reinsurance broker RK Carvill and its former client XL Professional Liability over its disputed D&O treaties is set for an October 2005 show-down.