Mr Justice Jacobs of the Commercial Court in London has ruled against the 13 insurers in the COVID-19 business interruption (BI) test case centred on ‘at the premises’ (ATP) disease cover.
The test case consisted of six BI actions, with the claim by London International Exhibition Centre Plc serving as the lead. The separate claims involved the following:
Stewarts, which acted for the ExCeL London owner, noted: “These test cases form a natural extension of the test case that was brought by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2020, which concluded with the Supreme Court’s judgment in January 2021.
“The Commercial Court has now ruled that the Supreme Court’s ruling on concurrent causation also applies to ATP disease clauses in the same way as the radius disease clauses considered in the test cases.”
In his ruling, Mr Justice Jacobs said none of the insurers’ arguments in support of the contrary conclusion were persuasive.
“This seems to me to be an appropriate result, since any other conclusion would give rise to anomalies which it would be difficult rationally to explain to a reasonable SME policyholder who read the policy,” he declared.
Meanwhile Stewarts commented that the decision provided “some further finality” for issues left unresolved by the FCA test case.
Stewarts went on to assert: “The judgment could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of policyholders based on previous FCA estimates as to the extent to which ATP cover was purchased, and policyholders whose BI losses remain uncompensated should now revisit their policy documents to consider whether they may now have a valid claim to pursue.”
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