March 2010/3

Law firm Sidley Austin has hired insurance litigators Martin Membery and Matthew Griffith from rival Pinsent Masons to join the practice as partners.

Alexander Baugh is to take up the newly created position of president and CEO of Chartis Europe Holdings.

Argo Group became the latest international (re)insurer to repatriate capital to shareholders last week, with a $17.5mn buyback of its common stock in an accelerated share repurchase agreement with Goldman Sachs.

Novae Group is no longer the long-tail, liability-oriented business of the past and from 2011 will finally succeed in shaking its "long-term return on equity problem", CEO Matthew Fosh believes.

American International Group (AIG) has set the price of its remaining shares in former affiliate Transatlantic Holdings at $53.35, which would yield $490mn.

The Microinsurance Innovation Facility of the International Labour Organization (ILO) has received its largest ever number of applications to support microinsurance projects in its fourth round of grants.

Marsh parent Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC) is poised to sell off Kroll, its underperforming corporate investigations division, for 30 percent less than it originally paid.

Munich Re has withdrawn from writing most structured trade credit reinsurance and reduced its appetite for all credit risks after the recession drove this part of its business to EUR510mn losses in 2009.

Last year's loss log offers further evidence that the biggest challenge facing energy insurers is the rise of the mega-loss, with $100mn plus claims accounting for more than two-thirds of total losses.

New York City officials has offered a $658mn settlement to thousands of workers who became ill from rescue and clean-up work after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.

Australian insurer QBE has warned that the global insurance market is likely to remain soft for the next 12 to 18 months.

Beefed-up capital requirements due to come in with Solvency II will make the insurance industry less rather than more stable, according to Europe's insurance and reinsurance trade body.