Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

In a recent Law360 expert analysis, titled “Considering Disclosure Risks In Sensitive Product Recalls,” Hunton Andrews Kurth insurance lawyers Syed S. Ahmad and Geoffrey B. Fehling discuss the disclosure risks companies face in pursuing insurance coverage for losses arising from product recalls that involve potentially sensitive communications with the Food and Drug Administration or other government agencies. The authors focus on a recent New York opinion, which denied a pharmaceutical company’s motion to seal status reports between the company and the FDA, and ...

In an article appearing in Electric Light & Power, Hunton insurance recovery lawyers, Lawrence Bracken, Sergio Oehninger and Alexander Russo discuss the insurability of losses resulting from the recent wildfires in California.  Many affected by the tragedy have tried to shift responsibility to utility and power companies, which also may face subrogation claims from insurers that paid property and business owners for first-party losses.  In addition, liability insurance programs may help defray costs imposed upon those believed to be at fault, including costs resulting from ...

Hunton & Williams insurance partner, Syed Ahmad, was quoted twice in Law360 concerning significant insurance cases to watch in 2018.  On January 1, 2018, Ahmad noted that Pitzer College v. Indian Harbor Insurance Co., pending in the California Supreme Court, “can be significant for coverage disputes in California because the California rule could override the law of the state that would apply otherwise, even if the parties agreed to another state’s law governing,"  On January 9, 2018,  Ahmad was again asked by Law360 to comment on key D&O cases that will likely be decided in 2018.  Ahmad noted that in Patriarch Partners LLC v. Axis Insurance Co., pending in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Patriarch's appeal presents an unusual situation in which a policyholder is arguing that various developments in an ongoing SEC investigation don't constitute a claim under a D&O policy, in order to avoid the application of an exclusion.  In other circumstances, it may be favorable for a policyholder to assert that a preliminary step in an SEC probe is a claim, so as to maximize coverage.   According to Ahmad, the district court didn't fully address how, in the context of the specific policy language at issue, a non-public order by the SEC could qualify as a claim.   "As Patriarch argues, 'until an agency makes a demand upon the target under legal compulsion, there may be no way for a policyholder to even know that it is being investigated, that an order authorizing investigation has been issued against it or what the order of investigation says,'" Ahmad said, quoting from Patriarch's appellate brief.