July 2003/1

Industry give cautious welcome to US Court decisions which reign in excesses of the Wall Street litigation; $1bn settlement removes 309 IPO companies from “laddering” litigation Insurers exposed to the myriad of US shareholder class action suits were

Start-up changes advisers while debating merits of Lloyd's over company Illium Insurance, the proposed UK liability start-up headed by respected ex Limit stalwart Denis Burniston and Russell Benzies, has applied to form a new Lloyd's Syndicate to begi

Giant German Munich Re has become the first international reinsurer to receive a nationwide composite operating license in China as penetration into the tightly controlled domestic market gathers pace.

Lloyd's (re)insurer Chaucer has written to Names increasing the offer for unaligned 2004 capacity on its proposed merged Syndicate 1084 from 7.5p to 11p per £1. Chaucer upped the offer after its initial 21 June proposal met with little enthusiasm from

Trenwick Managing Agency announced at the beginning of the month that it had stopped writing aviation business "with immediate effect". The firm, which hopes to announce a management buyout from its distressed parent Trenwick International later this mont

A Marsh takeover of UK broker HLF Group has taken a step closer to reality with the revelations that the world's largest insurance broker has begun due diligence proceedings.

Marsh reinsurance broking arm Guy Carpenter has become entangled in a competition dispute in the US with an IT outfit it partly owns. Ohioan software firm ReClaim Technologies and Services has filed a $10mn lawsuit against the broker for breach of cont

Rich behaviour Last year, The Insider's quarterly magazine, IQ, launched its inaugural London Market Rich List. It went down a storm and we will do again this year in the Autumn edition of IQ. But clearly some people could not wait that long - includin

CXRe, the operation in run-off formerly known as CNA Re UK, is facing a £2.5mn lawsuit from St Paul Syndicate 314 for non-payment of claims. In its 18 June High Court filing, the Syndicate "claims damages in respect of the defendant's failure, in breac

Despite Lloyd’s chairman Lord Levene’s recent assertion that “capital is capital. I don’t understand why people should be fixated by a particular type of capital”, the Franchise Board of Lloyd’s has established a Working Group to advise on the Society’s f

Lloyd’s insurers are continuing to expand suggesting 2004 capacity will exceed £15bn Lloyd’s capacity should breach the £15bn barrier next year as managing agents continue expanding their capital bases to take advantage of the ripe trading conditions.

Some of AIG’s “independent” directors have had unusual financial relationships with AIG or its affiliates, and may not be as independent as they appear to be. AIG’s failure to disclose these relationships to its shareholders raises questions about the com

Lloyd's insurer negotiating with new advisers to rekindle postponed fund The Lloyd's based UK insurer Creechurch is considering a second attempt at a London IPO later this year, less than two months after withdrawing a planned £75mn AIM offer with sto

James Truscott has left Euclidian Group, the Lloyd's insurer he co-founded with James Stuart in 1994. Although currently the Group's executive chairman, Truscott has been away from the office for much of the year and, according to sources close to the

Advisors appointed to discuss "strategic options" which include a possible sale; concerns over reserve adequacies; space shuttle loss and The Accident Group; future of Syndicate 102 in doubt; share price falls by 30 percent Following reassurances from

Troubled UK liability insurer The Underwriter has announced that it has gone into "solvent run-off" and, as of last Friday (11 July), will no longer write new business. The decision comes as a result of an FSA review into the company's parlous capital sit

Damning judgment involving "grave dishonesty" and "corruption of standards" In one of the industry's most eagerly awaited judgments in modern times, Sphere Drake has avoided over $250mn of exposures after broker Stirling Cooke Brown was lambasted by a

After an epic dispute that began in early 1999 with the Unicover fall-out, Odyssey Re predecessor Sphere Drake was victorious in the UK High Court earlier this month against the disgraced carve-out brokers SCB. It was one of the most eagerly awaited indus