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Posts Tagged ‘Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Run-Off Companies’

Holman Fenwick Willan and The Loree Law Firm Give London Talk on U.S. Versus English Arbitration Law

December 7th, 2009 Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Run-Off Companies (AIRROC), English Law, Events, London Market, Practice and Procedure, Reinsurance Arbitration Comments Off on Holman Fenwick Willan and The Loree Law Firm Give London Talk on U.S. Versus English Arbitration Law

On December 1, 2009 my friend and colleague Costas Frangeskides , a partner at Holman Fenwick Willan (“HFW” or “Holmans”), and I gave a presentation at HFW’s London offices entitled “Reinsurance Arbitration:  Approaching Things Differently Either Side of the ‘Pond.'”   The program was moderated by Holmans partner Andrew Bandurka, who, like Costas, focuses his practice on reinsurance and insurance dispute resolution.  I have known Costas and Andrew for several years as we were co-counsel in a long-running matter handled by Holmans and my former law firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP. 

The presentation was designed to provide reinsurance professionals with some insights concerning the differences between U.S. and English reinsurance arbitration practice and procedure.  The principal theme was that U.S. arbitration law is designed principally to enforce the parties’ arbitration agreement as written, placing it on the same footing as all other contracts, while English arbitration law favors party automony, but also imposes a greater number of policy-based norms regulating arbitration, which limit to some extent the parties’ ability to structure their dispute resolution procedure exactly as they see fit. Continue Reading »

KX Reinsurance Company v. General Reinsurance Corp.: Arbitrators May Not Retain Jurisdiction After Deciding All Submitted Issues

June 28th, 2009 Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Run-Off Companies (AIRROC), Authority of Arbitrators, Awards, Functus Officio, Grounds for Vacatur, Practice and Procedure, Reinsurance Arbitration, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York 1 Comment »

 Arbitration clauses in reinsurance contracts  typically recognize either expressly or impliedly that an arbitration proceeding has a beginning and an end.   The process usually begins with a demand for arbitration and the selection of an arbitration panel, and ends with the arbitrators holding a hearing on the merits and issuing a final award.  At that point the parties generally expect that the arbitrators will step down, and that any future dispute will be the subject of a new arbitration proceeding, perhaps with a different panel. Continue Reading »

Peter Scarpato Reports on the Association of Insurance & Reinsurance Run-Off Companies (AIRROC) Dispute Resolution Procedure for Small Claims

June 27th, 2009 Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Run-Off Companies (AIRROC), Practice and Procedure, Reinsurance Arbitration Comments Off on Peter Scarpato Reports on the Association of Insurance & Reinsurance Run-Off Companies (AIRROC) Dispute Resolution Procedure for Small Claims

The Spring 2009 issue of AIRROC Matters is out and available here:

http://www.airroc.org/files/AIRROC_Spring_2009.pdf.

Peter Scarpato (website here), Editor-in-Chief of AIRROC Matters, wrote an interesting article on AIRROC’s new Dispute Resolution Procedure for Small Claims. The procedure is designed to provide a cost-effective alternative to a full-blown reinsurance arbitration for resolving relatively small-dollar reinsurance disputes. Peter’s article, which is highly recommended, appears on page 9 of the newsletter.   (Not too long ago, Peter submitted to the Forum an excellent guest post on mediation of reinsurance disputes, introduction to the post available here, and post available here.)

I sense on the part of many some dissatisfaction with certain aspects of reinsurance arbitration practice. One popular complaint is cost — not only the cost of legal services, but arbitrator fees. Tied into cost is time — most reinsurance attorneys and arbitrators charge by the hour, and reinsurance arbitrations can be as lenghty, or nearly as lengthy as court proceedings. In some cases, they are more lengthy.

When the amount at stake is tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, then the cost/value ratio may not be that high, but when the value of the claim goes down, the cost/value ratio tends to go up (even though the costs are lower from a dollars and cents perspective).  

What AIRROC (website here) has done is devised an alternative procedure featuring expedited proceedings, a $150 per hour cap on arbitrator fees, and a single arbitrator. The procedure (which, of course, is voluntary) may well provide a useful alternative to a full-blown arbitration for claims whose dollar value is small enough to fall within its scope. 

We’d  be interested in what others think about the procedure.  In addition, we’d be interested in hearing people’s thoughts on whether the procedure might provide a workable blueprint for other industry small-claims procedures.