Global Reinsurance Corporation-U.S. Branch v. Equitas Ltd.

82 A.D.3d 26, 921 N.Y.2d 1
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedJanuary 18, 2011
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 82 A.D.3d 26 (Global Reinsurance Corporation-U.S. Branch v. Equitas Ltd.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Global Reinsurance Corporation-U.S. Branch v. Equitas Ltd., 82 A.D.3d 26, 921 N.Y.2d 1 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT

McGuire, J.

The complaint alleges that the Equitas defendants are the hub of a conspiracy that violates New York’s antitrust law (General Business Law § 340 et seq. [the Donnelly Act]). The product market alleged is the market for non-life (property, casualty and related lines of insurance business) retrocessional reinsurance coverage — the coverage provided by retrocessionaires to retrocedents, i.e., the reinsurers that provide coverage to the insurers, or cedents, that provide the coverage to the underlying policyholders — and the market is alleged to include the purchase, sale and servicing of this retrocessional reinsurance coverage. The geographic scope of the market is alleged to be worldwide, but a submarket also is alleged, the Lloyd’s marketplace, i.e., the collection in London of the hundreds of syndicates (composed of individual underwriting members or “Names”) that annually compete for the placement of new insurance, reinsurance and retrocessional business. Prior to the formation of the conspiracy, syndicates that provide retrocessional coverage, like syndicates that provide the other forms of non-life insurance coverage, are alleged to have competed with each other in two principal areas: premiums charged and claims handling. With respect to claims handling, plaintiff essentially contends in the complaint, and in affidavits submitted in opposition to the motion to dismiss, that for decades the culture of the Lloyd’s marketplace, a culture that helped it win business, has been that claims should be paid on terms that are favorable to claimants (be they policyholders, cedents or retrocedents), i.e., even when the policy’s terms would permit the claims to be rejected. In other words, obtaining new business depends not only on having the ability to pay claims submitted on past contracts but on having a reputation for not making “hardheaded” decisions when those claims are submitted.

The alleged conspiracy originated in 1996, when the Names were faced with financial ruin because of potentially crippling losses stemming from unexpectedly large claims on certain pre1993 non-life lines of business, i.e., long-tail asbestos and environmental coverage (the pre-1993 business). As the syndicates could not retroactively increase the premiums they received on the pre-1993 business, they could meet the threat only by cutting claims payouts. The problem with cutting claims [29]*29payouts, however, was that if only some syndicates sinned, all others would be saints. That is, individual syndicates of Names that cut claims payments would lose current and future business to syndicates that adhered to the culture that helped Lloyd’s achieve its preeminent stature.

The solution was concerted action in 1996 that permitted all syndicates both to cut claims payments on the pre-1993 business and to compete as they historically had on new business. Through the Reconstruction and Renewal Plan (the R & R Plan), the Lloyd’s marketplace was restructured. The Equitas entities were established, as the complaint alleges, “to reinsure and perform claims-handling responsibilities for certain pre1993 liabilities of the Names, including liabilities under retrocessional agreements with retrocedents such as [plaintiff].” Pursuant to a Reinsurance and Run-Off Contract (the RROC) that the Equitas entities entered into with most of the Names, Equitas purportedly was granted “exclusive and irrevocable responsibility” for the liabilities of the Names that arose from the pre-1993 business. Thus, instead of the syndicates making their own independent decisions on the validity of claims and whether, when and how much to pay, under the RROC, those decisions were the sole province of Equitas. The reserves held by or on behalf of the Names to meet their individual liabilities under the pre-1993 business were pooled into a separate fund (the Fund) solely managed and controlled by Equitas. By reinsuring the liabilities of the Names under the pre-1993 business, each of the Names effectively capped its liabilities at the amount of the reserves contributed to the Fund (provided, presumably, that Equitas was able to pay all claims). The effect of the restructuring was to place all the syndicates simultaneously into runoff with respect to the pre-1993 business. Equitas’s exclusive claims-handling authority permitted it to cut claims payouts on the pre-1993 business (and thus tended to ensure the adequacy of the reserves in the Fund).

In its main brief in this Court, plaintiff is understandably quick to point to the rationale for Equitas articulated by a Lloyd’s executive in another litigation:

“ ‘[0]ne of the premises behind [Equitas] is that the efficient management of long tail liabilities is hindered, not helped, by the structure of Lloyd’s. Internal competition provided by Lloyd’s syndicate structure has helped the market win business over the years. But in handling long tail liabilities, the [30]*30decentralised syndicate system is flawed. Centralisation promises major savings’ (Allen v Lloyd’s of London, 1996 WL 490177, *52, 1996 US Dist LEXIS 12300, *159-160 [1996] [internal quotation marks omitted]).”

Or, as the principal of the current owner of Equitas reportedly stated in explaining its multi-billion dollar investment in Equitas: “[B]y concentrating all of the liabilities into one place, [Equitas] had the advantage of eliminating much of the costly intramural squabbling that went on among syndicates.” Also understandably, plaintiff states in its main brief that “[t]he correct name for such ‘squabbling’ is ‘competition.’ ”

Although the complaint goes on to allege in considerable detail the ongoing consequences of the concentration in Equitas of claims-handling authority for the pre-1993 business, those consequences need not be detailed here. Suffice it to say, plaintiff alleges that cost savings from the elimination of claims service competition with respect to the pre-1993 business were realized over the ensuing years at its expense and that of retrocedents generally. According to plaintiff, Equitas engaged in claims payment behavior — i.e., denying claims and, when they were not denied, paying less and later — that retrocessionaires subject to competitive constraints could not have engaged in, and that it (plaintiff) has suffered millions of dollars in damages as a result.

In upholding the dismissal of the complaint, the dissent first accepts an argument — that plaintiff fails to allege an antitrust injury — rejected by Supreme Court when it denied Equitas’s prior motion to dismiss under CPLR 3211 (a) (7) and (8) for failure to state a claim and want of personal jurisdiction. Legal analysis of that argument begins with the precept that the provisions of the Donnelly Act “should generally be construed in light of Federal precedent and given a different interpretation only where State policy, differences in the statutory language or the legislative history justify such a result” (Anheuser-Busch, Inc. v Abrams, 71 NY2d 327, 335 [1988]). Antitrust injury is “injury of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes defendants’ acts unlawful” (Brunswick Corp. v Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 US 477, 489 [1977]). Antitrust laws “are meant to protect competition” and “[t]o demonstrate harm to competition, a plaintiff must show that there has been an adverse effect on prices, output, or quality of goods in the relevant market as a result of the challenged actions” (Aventis Envtl. Science USA LP v Scotts Co., [31]*31383 F Supp 2d 488, 503 [SD NY 2005]).

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Related

Global Reinsurance Corp. v. Equitas Ltd
969 N.E.2d 187 (New York Court of Appeals, 2012)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
82 A.D.3d 26, 921 N.Y.2d 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/global-reinsurance-corporation-us-branch-v-equitas-ltd-nyappdiv-2011.