On March 20, 2023, the Southern District of New York denied a policyholder’s claim for coverage and granted the insurer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in Pine Management, Inc. v. Colony Insurance Company. The parties disputed whether a real estate liability insurance policy provided defense and indemnification for Pine Management, Inc. in an underlying lawsuit brought by numerous companies that Pine managed. A simple question proved pivotal in the outcome: whether Pine had timely sought coverage for its claim. Two key policy provisions guided the court’s analysis. First, to trigger cov ..read more

Blockchain technology has been touted as inherently reliable for years. More recently, collectors of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have explored expanded uses for that novel technology. Some courts have bought in and, in doing so, recently authorized a use that perhaps no one had imagined when NFTs first entered the mainstream: service of process. In Bandyopadhyay v. Defendant 1, No. 22-CV-22907 (S.D. Fla.), a victim of crypto-theft brought suit against the suspected perpetrators alleging that the defendants had stolen approximately $950,000 worth of cryptocurrency from his Coinbase wallet. Howev ..read more

Congratulations to Adriana Perez on her selection to the National Association of Women Lawyers’ (NAWL) 2023 Rising List. Adriana is a member of Hunton Andrews Kurth’s national Insurance Recovery practice and is based in the Firm’s Miami, Florida office. Hunton Insurance Recovery Partner, Michael Levine, commented on the enormous success the team has had in recent years, with recognitions like Adriana’s being emblematic of the team’s high caliber practice and visibility. Team Head, Syed Ahmad, added that the recognition is a tribute to Adriana’s growth as a young lawyer and her trajectory to be ..read more

The Eighth Circuit has affirmed that an AIG affiliate must cover the full $32 million loss stemming from an employee’s embezzlement scheme. The court found that not only was National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh (“National Union”) liable for the $3 million the employee actually stole, but that the plain language of the commercial crime policy also required coverage for the $29 million in excess costs her scheme caused Cargill to endure. Background Diane Backis worked at a Cargill grain facility in Albany, New York for many years. The facility stored and sold grain that Cargill sh ..read more

On Monday, March 6, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear an insurance coverage dispute, Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co., LLC.  Insurance cases are few and far between in the high court, so both policyholders and their insurers will be watching the Great Lakes case with great interest.  Notably, while the case involves the specialized area of maritime law, how the Supreme Court chooses to address the choice-of-law issue it presents could have much broader implications. The Great Lakes case calls upon the Supreme Court to consider whether the “strong public policy ..read more

A New York Federal judge recently ordered a directors and officers liability insurer to pay $4.5 million that an investment firm had spent defending an arbitration proceeding brought by a former executive. The court found that allegations of constructive termination and related retaliation triggered an exception to the D&O policy’s insured-versus-insured exclusion for employment-related wrongful acts, rejecting the insurer’s argument that, notwithstanding the former executive’s count for constructive termination, his status as an “Insured Person” triggered the exclusion where the majority ..read more

Hunton insurance recovery group partner Larry Bracken and associate Rachel Hudgins were each recognized in Georgia Super Lawyers 2023’s most recent publication. Larry Bracken was recognized as a Super Lawyer, and Rachel Hudgins was selected as a Rising Star for Insurance Coverage. Super Lawyers, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The patented selection process includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations. Ultimately ..read more

PFAS Regulation Per- and polyfluoroalkyl Substances (“PFAS”) are a class of substances that have increasingly become the target of federal and state regulation in everything from drinking water, groundwater, site contamination, waste, air emissions, firefighting foam, personal care products, food and food packaging, and now consumer and commercial products. PFAS are widely-used chemicals that have the unique ability to repel both oil and water, which led to their application in many products including items such as stain and water-repellent fabric, chemical-and oil-resistant coatings, food pac ..read more

A New York Federal judge recently ordered a directors and officers liability insurer to pay $4.5 million that an investment firm had spent defending an arbitration proceeding brought by a former executive. The court found that allegations of constructive termination and related retaliation triggered an exception to the D&O policy’s insured-versus-insured exclusion for employment-related wrongful acts, rejecting the insurer’s argument that, notwithstanding the former executive’s count for constructive termination, his status as an “Insured Person” triggered the exclusion where the majority ..read more

On June 27, 2017, the skies over New Jersey were clear and the ground steady. But Merck & Co., a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company, was under attack. Malware ripped through its computers, damaging 40,000 of them and causing over $1.4 billion in losses. Merck was not the sole target.[1] Dubbed “NotPetya,” the virus tore through the US economy,[2] and did an estimated $10 billion in damage. (This post describes losses experienced by other companies.) The US Department of Justice charged six Russian nationals, alleged officers of Russia’s Intelligence Directorate (the GRU), for their ro ..read more