Dec 2020
A very warm welcome to our third issue of Conyers Coverage. This issue introduces our insurance disputes team led by Alex Potts QC who have prepared articles on business interruption insurance and aggregation of insurance that we’re sure you’ll find interesting. We also provide an update on Economic Substance developments and welcome the removal of the Cayman Islands from the EU’s list of non-cooperative jurisdictions (the EU blacklist).
As always, we welcome your comments or article suggestions for future issues, and please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you would like to contribute to future editions of Conyers Coverage.
Introducing Conyers Insurance Disputes Team
In addition to Conyers’ market-leading corporate insurance practice in the Cayman Islands office ( and our offices in Bermuda, the BVI, London, Singapore and Hong Kong), we have five disputes’ partners and six associates on the ground in Cayman with considerable experience handling insurance and reinsurance disputes (as well as corporate, trusts, funds, and banking disputes).
Business Interruption Insurance claims: Will the Cayman Islands’ Courts follow the English Court’s Approach?
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an increasing number of contested Business Interruption Insurance claims between Policyholders and Insurers worldwide. In the USA alone, over 1250 Court cases have been commenced since March 2020, with policyholders nation-wide claiming insurance coverage for Business Interruption losses, both as individual plaintiffs and as part of larger class actions.
Aggregation of Losses under English, Cayman Islands and Bermuda Law: A COVID-19 Reminder for Insurers and Reinsurers
The longer and further that COVID-19 spreads, the more likely it is that there will be disputes as to whether or not COVID-19 related losses can be aggregated by (re)insureds for the purpose of (re)insurance claims.
Many individuals COVID-19 related claims will be too small on their ow to reach the attachment point of most excess of loss or catastrophe reinsurance treaties. If aggregated, however, they might well be within the scope of the excess layer or the reinsurance cover.
The Cayman Islands removal from the EU Blacklist
As was expected, the Cayman Islands was removed from the EU’s Annex 1 list (the so-called “blacklist”) on 6 October 2020 and is considered by the EU to be a fully cooperative jurisdiction for tax purposes. In February 2020 the EU included the Cayman Islands on its blacklist, apparently due to an unfortunate technical breach in the timing of the adoption of certain legislation required by the EU. Whilst the Cayman Islands Government had endeavoured to address the EU’s concerns in respect of the regulation of collective investment vehicles (CIVs) through the passing of The Private Funds Law and The Mutual Funds (Amendment) Law on 31 January 2020, the laws were only enacted on 7 February, mere days after the EU’s Code of Conduct Group had met to advise the EU Finance Ministers on the preparation of the black list and advise that the Cayman Islands did not deliver on their commitment on time. The Cayman Islands Government immediately began liaisons with EU officials to begin the process of the Cayman Islands being removed from the blacklist as soon as possible, the earliest opportunity being October 2020. To this end, the recent removal of the Cayman Islands from the blacklist, whilst expected, is welcome news to the financial services industry, with the EU joining the OECD in recognising the Cayman Islands as cooperative jurisdiction on transparency and tax information sharing.
Insurance Managers and other outsourced service providers on whom client insurers will be seeking to rely to establish substance in the Cayman Islands will also be required to lodge a “Form for Outsource Service Providers” via the TIA portal to enable the TIA to verify the outsourced services detailed in the ESR.
Cayman Economic Substance Update:
The Department for International Tax Cooperation (“DITC”) has advised that the DITC Portal (which will be used for a range of regulatory notification and reporting purposes) opened in early November; initially FATCA and CRA purposes, with functionality for Economic Substance and Country-by-Country reporting to follow.
Meet the team: Alex Potts QC
Alex Potts QC joined Conyers insurance team in February 2020. With a particular focus on complex disputes, Alex handles matters in the fields of banking, financial services, investment funds, (re)insurance, professional negligence, company laws. Trusts, asset recovery and contentious insolvency.
Industry News:
- CIMA announces its Q3 Insurance Statistics
We’re extremely pleased to note that Conyers assisted 75% of all new licenses registered this quarter - Congratulations to Adrian Lynch on his appointment as Executive Vice Persident North Smerica at Artex
- Congratulations to Monique MacDonald on her move from Global Captive Management to Captiva Global Finance