Insurance litigation and professional risk - February 2012

Welcome to the first of our bulletins for 2012

We expect to see several important decisions this year in the field of insurance and professional risk. The actions of Money Laundering Reporting Officers are currently under scrutiny in the Shah v HSBC litigation, the Supreme Court will in April  2012 consider whether a claimant who dishonestly exaggerates their claim can be denied all damages in Summers v Fairclough Homes Ltd, while in November 2012 the Supreme Court will consider whether accountants can claim legal privilege in the Prudential case.

One of the major expected developments of 2012, the implementation of the Jackson reforms on litigation funding, has now been postponed. The Government has announced that the changes, including the end of recoverability from losing defendants of conditional fee uplifts and ATE premiums, and the introduction of contingency fees for lawyers, will be delayed until April 2013. This means we will have to deal with claimants who have no financial exposure to litigation for a while yet.

This month we report on three cases specific to solicitors’ liability, one on valuers’ liability, plus some interesting decisions of more general relevance.