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Insurance UK
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July 31, 2024
Gov't Plans Backstop Legislation To Tackle Audit Backlog
The new Labour government said Wednesday it is preparing legislation to introduce a statutory backstop as the U.K. faces a growing backlog of audits of local authorities.
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July 31, 2024
FCA Maintains Restrictions On London Stone Securities
The Financial Conduct Authority said Wednesday that it will continue to restrict London Stone Securities, preventing the wealth manager from conducting any regulated activities because of serious concerns that it is not delivering good results for clients.
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July 31, 2024
Aussie Bank ANZ Acquires Suncorp Unit For $3.2B
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. said Wednesday that it has acquired Suncorp Bank for approximately 4.9 billion Australian dollars ($3.2 billion), two years after it signed the deal.
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July 31, 2024
Pension Plans Do Minimum ESG Compliance, Watchdog Says
Too many retirement savings plans attain only minimum compliance with environmental, social and governance standards, The Pensions Regulator has said, and urged them to improve their approach.
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July 30, 2024
Eversheds-Led Greggs Lands £100M Pension Deal With Aviva
Aviva PLC has insured the retirement savings plans of more than 600 members of British bakery and café chain Greggs PLC in a buy-in transaction of £100 million ($128.4 million), with the deal guided by Eversheds Sutherland.
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August 06, 2024
HSF Hires Former CMS Insurance Head In Madrid
Herbert Smith Freehills LLP has hired an experienced insurance expert to join its team in the Spanish capital, as the firm looks to bolster its practice with added expertise in the sector.
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July 30, 2024
Regulator Highlights Quality Gaps Among Top Auditors
The Financial Reporting Council said Tuesday that there is a widening gap between BDO LLP and Forvis Mazars LLP and the better performance of the Big Four accounting firms for high-quality audits of major U.K. companies.
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July 30, 2024
Pension Tax Reform Could Unlock £100B For UK Growth
Changing how pensions are taxed in the U.K. could potentially unlock more than £100 billion ($128 billion) for domestic investment over the next five years, according to a recent analysis by a pensions consultancy.
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July 30, 2024
Pensioner Welfare Cuts Create 'Cliff Edge,' LCP Says
The Labour government's decision to cut annual winter fuel payments worth up to £300 ($385) for retirees not on pension credit or other means-tested benefits will create an unwelcome "cliff edge" for savers, a consultancy has said.
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July 30, 2024
Pension Firms Meeting Equity Investment Goals, Insurers Say
Pension firms that signed up to an agreement to allocate a minimum of 5% of defined contribution funds to unlisted equities by 2030 have laid "strong foundations" in line with the target, British insurers said Tuesday.
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July 29, 2024
ECJ Nixes Swedish Dividends Tax On Foreign Pension Funds
Sweden can't collect a withholding tax on dividends distributed by Swedish companies to public pension funds abroad while exempting its own public funds because that is inconsistent with European Union law requiring the free movement of capital, the European Court of Justice said Monday.
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July 29, 2024
Gov't Consults On Tax Hikes For Fund Managers, Non-Doms
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said Monday that an autumn Budget planned for Oct. 30 will include feature selected tax rises, a warning accompanied by strong hints from HM Treasury that fund managers and non-domicile taxpayers could take a bigger hit.
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July 29, 2024
New Defined Benefit Funding Code Laid Before Parliament
Britain's pensions watchdog on Monday said its long-awaited funding code for defined benefit retirement savings plans has been laid before Parliament, marking what it called a "significant step."
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July 29, 2024
Zurich Invests $60M In Cyber Insurance Provider For SMEs
Swiss insurance giant Zurich has invested $60 million in Cowbell, a provider of cyberinsurance for small businesses, the digital risk company said, amid growing industry concerns over cyberthreats.
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July 29, 2024
FCA Weighs Taking Protection From Some Insurance Clients
The Financial Conduct Authority proposed on Monday a change to the criteria of classifying a small business as a commercial insurance client by removing consumer protection rules from some firms when they buy insurance products.
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July 29, 2024
BMS To Acquire Rival UK Insurance Broker From PE Biz
Independent insurance and reinsurance broker BMS Group said Monday that it is set to purchase David Roberts & Partners Insurance Brokers Ltd. from Inflexion Private Equity Partners LLP.
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July 26, 2024
Virgin Loses Court Battle To Keep Pension Plan Changes
An appeals court has ruled that regulations on contracted-out retirement savings plans require written confirmation from a scheme's actuary for changes affecting beneficiaries' future rights, not just past benefits, rejecting Virgin Media's challenge to a decision voiding decades-old changes to one of its pensions.
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July 26, 2024
Ellex-Led ERGO To Buy €80M Baltic Biz Of European Insurer
European insurance heavyweight ERGO Group has agreed to acquire Norwegian nonlife insurer Gjensidige Forsikring ASA's Lithuania-based subsidiary ADB Gjensidige for €80 million ($87 million).
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July 26, 2024
FCA To Overhaul Prospectus Rules To Boost Capital Markets
The Financial Conduct Authority set out plans to shake up the U.K.'s prospectus regime Friday, including new rules for public offers and risk disclosures, to help boost the country's ailing capital markets.
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July 26, 2024
EU Banks Must Improve Cyberattack Protection, ECB Says
Lenders in the eurozone still suffer from "shortcomings" in fighting against and recovering from a severe — but plausible — cyberattack, the European Central Bank said Friday after it conducted a resilience stress test.
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July 26, 2024
UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London
This past week in London has seen U.K. band The 1975 face action by Future Sound Asia after its performance in Malaysia resulted in a festival's cancelation, Spectrum Insurance hit by The Motoring Organization following their dispute over information misuse, and a former police constable pursue defamation against a colleague for allegedly instigating a campaign of harassment against her. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.
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July 26, 2024
Fraudster Sentenced For Instagram Motor Insurance Scam
A man who made almost £18,000 by operating as a "ghost broker" and selling invalid car insurance policies on Instagram has been handed a suspended prison sentence of 24 months at a London court, City Police has said.
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July 25, 2024
Insurer Can't Link Secrets Suit To $47M Claim, Ex-Worker Says
A former worker for British insurance company Beazley urged a Florida federal court Thursday to toss claims alleging trade secrets theft, saying the company's suit doesn't show how he supposedly caused it to incur $47 million in damages from an arbitration case over a Brazilian thermoelectric plant.
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July 25, 2024
Audit Watchdog Sanctioned Firms £48M Last Year
The Financial Reporting Council revealed Thursday that it fined firms a total of £48.2 million ($62 million) in the financial year ended March 31, including a £21 million fine against auditor KPMG related to its accounting for construction giant Carillion prior to its collapse in 2018.
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July 25, 2024
Insurance Trade Bodies Launch Sustainability Data Standard
Two insurance trade bodies have released a resource designed to standardize the way underwriters ask clients about their sustainability data to address fragmented approaches across the industry.
Expert Analysis
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Remote Working Tips For Lawyer Trainees And Their Firms
The prospect of joining a law firm during the pandemic can cause added pressure, but with a few good practices — and a little help from their firms and supervising attorneys — lawyer trainees can get ahead of the curve while working remotely, say William Morris and Ted Landray at King & Spalding.
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What Growing Focus On ESG Means For Insurers
As the world pays steadily more attention to environmental, social and governance issues, insurers and reinsurers will need to integrate ESG risks into their underwriting and compliance efforts, but doing so will help attract consumers and achieve positive investment returns, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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Finance Firms May See Increased FCA Enforcement This Year
Financial firms will likely see increased investigation and enforcement actions from the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority following Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, including in the areas of financial crime, customer protection, operational resilience and conduct, says Tracey Dovaston at Boies Schiller.
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UK Supreme Court Ruling Clarifies Arbitrator Bias Standard
The U.K. Supreme Court's judgment in Halliburton v. Chubb, likely the court's most important decision in the area of international arbitration in the past decade, articulates important guidelines for how English courts will police issues of arbitrator disclosure and bias, even as it fuels concerns among insurance policyholders, say Allan Moore and Ramon Luque at Covington.
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Evaluating Ethical And Legal Risk In Ransomware Payments
Deciding whether to pay the demanded ransom during a cyberattack is complex and requires a careful balancing of the risks to the firm's business against the reputational and regulatory risks, but companies can also prepare for this eventuality by taking concrete steps now, say Rob Dedman and Kim Roberts at King & Spalding.
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How Climate, Finance And Trade Will Intersect In 2021
In the coming year, the Biden administration will likely align its policies on climate change, finance and trade more closely with those of international partners and organizations, leading to more coordinated action on climate standards that will be applied across the global economy, say consultants at C&M International.
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Perspectives
Finding A Path Forward To Regulate The Legal Industry
Gerald Knapton at Ropers Majeski analyzes U.S. and U.K. experiments to explore alternative business structures and independent oversight for law firms, which could lead to innovative approaches to increasing access to legal services.
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Whether And How To Compel Remote Arbitration
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
As the pandemic delays in-person arbitration hearings, mediator and arbitrator Theodore Cheng provides arbitrators with a checklist to examine the rationale and authority for compelling parties to participate in remote hearings.
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Creditors Welcome UK Supreme Court's Reflective Loss Decision
The U.K. Supreme Court's recent Sevilleja v. Marex decision benefits creditors and other stakeholders by excluding their claims from the reflective loss principle, which precludes third-party complaints that merely reflect company loss, say Robert Fidoe and Jack Moulder at Watson Farley.
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How Courts Are Encouraging Mediation In England And Wales
As the judiciary braces for widespread pandemic-driven contractual disputes, courts in England and Wales are showing enthusiastic support for mediation, both when determining the implications of a party's refusal to mediate and when assessing whether normal restrictions on the use of mediation-derived information apply, says Leah Alpren-Waterman at Watson Farley.
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Opinion
EU Class Action Policy Guided By Wrong Measure Of Success
The political agreement obtained last month on the first European Union-wide rules on collective redress illustrates the fact that the main goal of the authorities is to increase the number of class action claims rather than focus on the application of standard civil liability principles, says Sylvie Gallage-Alwis at Signature Litigation.
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An Attractive Regime For Governing Jurisdiction Post-Brexit
As indicated by the U.K.'s recent application to join the Lugano Convention, this is an "oven-ready" option for the U.K. for governing questions of jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments with European Union countries after Brexit — but not without important differences from the current regime, say attorneys at Latham.
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Reinsurance Implications Of COVID-19 Biz Interruption Laws
In light of legislative and public pressure in the U.S. and U.K. on insurers to cover business interruption losses related to COVID-19, reinsurers will face new questions regarding their obligation to cover claim payments, say Robin Dusek at Saul Ewing and Susie Wakefield at Shoosmiths.
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UK Appellate Rulings Clarify Arbitral Choice Of Law
Two recent U.K. Court of Appeal decisions have changed the operation of the choice-of-law test for arbitration — a resolution as significant as changing the test itself because it affects the implied choices of the contracting parties, say attorneys at Squire Patton.
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Post-Pandemic Litigation To Expect In England And Wales
Globally, we are already starting to see insolvency-related claims and a number of insurance, breach of contract, employment and securities class actions across numerous sectors. These and other claims will likely increase for U.K. businesses, say Tracey Dovaston and Fiona Huntriss at Boies Schiller.