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Posts Tagged ‘Uniform Commercial Code’

COVID-19 Contract Performance Defenses under New York Law Part I

April 9th, 2020 Commercial Impracticability, COVID-19 Contract Defenses, Uniform Commercial Code Article 2 1 Comment »
performance | contract | excuse | defense

These are trying times, to say the least. Businesses have been shuttered or their operations substantially curtailed, millions of persons are out-of-work, and the economic future is uncertain. Those with performance obligations under business contracts may not be able to carry them out as agreed.

One economic result of this disruption is breach of contract and claims to recover for breach of contract. Generally, a breach is a breach, irrespective of the breaching party’s fault or best intentions.

But what happens when circumstances, like the unprecedented ones we’re experiencing today, intervene, leaving a business with no choice but to cease performance under a contract? Does that, under New York law, provide a business a defense to contract performance that can be asserted in litigation or arbitration?

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Pine Top Receivables, LLC v. Banco De Seguros Del Estado:  The Seventh Circuit Exorcises some Ghosts of Reinsurance Past, but has it Summoned an Erie Ghost of Reinsurance Future?

November 22nd, 2014 Appellate Jurisdiction, Appellate Practice, Arbitrability, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Collateral Requirements for Unauthorized Reinsurance, Contract Interpretation, Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, FAA Chapter 3, Federal Courts, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Insolvency Proceedings, Inter-American Convention on International Commercial Arbitration, McCarran-Ferguson Act, New York Convention, Panama Convention, Pre-Answer Security, Reinsurance Arbitration, Reinsurance Claims, Reinsurance Litigation, Security Requirements, Unauthorized Reinsurance, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, United States Supreme Court Comments Off on Pine Top Receivables, LLC v. Banco De Seguros Del Estado:  The Seventh Circuit Exorcises some Ghosts of Reinsurance Past, but has it Summoned an Erie Ghost of Reinsurance Future?

Part II: What Transpired in Pine Top?

 

In our last post on  Pine Top Receivables, LLC v. Banco De Seguros Del Estado, ___ F.3d ___, Nos. 13-1364/2331, slip op. (7th Cir. Nov. 7, 2014) (per curiam) (here), we offered our take on the case and what it might mean, particularly as respects the Court’s suggestion that state pre-answer security statutes may be procedural under the Erie doctrine, possibly inconsistent with federal procedural law and thus inapplicable in diversity cases. Now let’s take a closer look at what transpired in Pine Top, for even apart from the Court’s allusion to a possible Erie doctrine issue (our Erie ghost of reinsurance future), it involved a number of classic reinsurance issues (our ghosts of reinsurance past), as well as a notable appellate jurisdiction issue and the question whether the assignee of the insolvent ceding company acquired the right to demand arbitration against the reinsurer.  Continue Reading »