J. Rothschild Assurance plc v John Robert Collyear (First Defendant) and others Available to Purchase

The Plaintiff, J. Rothschild Assurance plc, is a life assurance company. This case arose out of the review of pensions mis‐selling and the Plaintiff sought to be indemnified by its professional indemnity insurers for the losses it had or may yet incur as a result of having to compensate investors pursuant to the review of pensions mis‐selling. The first Defendant, Mr Collyear, is a representative Lloyd's Underwriter, as are some of the other Defendants (the remainder of the Defendants being insurance companies). All the Defendants had subscribed to three ‘claims made’ indemnity insurance policies which together extended cover of some £20m, covering the period 1st February, 1993 until 31st January, 1994 and were identical in all terms material to this action. Because the Plaintiff was seeking indemnity in respect of so many different individual cases of compensation Mr Justice Clarke had, at an earlier hearing on 10th February, 1998, ordered a maximum of ten sample claims to be tried and all other proceedings stayed. It subsequently transpired that both parties agreed that neither were in a position to have a full trial of the facts of these cases but they nonetheless proceeded to a hearing of these sample claims which were used here in this case as a vehicle to isolate, argue and resolve certain basic themes and issues which were common to the claims in the stayed proceedings.