November 2003/3

Aviation lawyer Sean Gates has launched a new legal practice specialising in aerospace, commercial and private equity law. Gates and Partners will include Dan Soffin, and Adosh Chatrath, both former partners with Gates’ former practice Beaumont and Son.

Mutual fund hit by lawsuits, client withdrawals, ratings downgrades

Berkshire Hathaway posted a 58 percent increase in third-quarter earnings including investment gains last Friday (7 November).

Bermudan specialty lines insurer Axis Capital Holdings reported a 60 percent increase in Q3 earnings, helped by a more than doubling of gross written premiums.

Last Thursday (6 November 2003), troubled French reinsurer SCOR announced a loss of EUR349mn for the first nine months of the year as it struggles to cope with prior year adverse development and flagging attempts to commute liabilities from its Bermudian

Fitch Ratings upped the stakes in its robust stance with reinsurers last week when it questioned the motives behind the latest round of capital raising.

GoshawK has parted company with its chief executive Chris Fagan as part of a management reshuffle, the company announced on 10 November.

Heath Lambert Group, the world’s seventh largest broker, has unveiled a management shuffle as part of a financial restructuring which may end speculation about the Group’s future.

Insurer CNA surprised the markets last week with news that it would push back the date of its earnings announcement from 6 November to 12 November.

The UK’s second largest general insurer Brit Insurance Holdings Plc has bolstered its casualty arm by appointing four new underwriters, including former Limit director Peter Battle.

XL Re Europe announced last week the opening of its Paris underwriting office. The office will underwrite non-life business in France, Belgium and Luxembourg, and will be headed up by the current head of the company’s property department Jeremy Hindle.

National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) president Mike Pickens has advocated modernisation of state insurance regulation in the US, but baulked at suggestions that power should be taken away at the state level, as some have suggested with p