The Swiss Insurance Oversight Act has been subject to a partial revision in order to bring the protection of insurance customers in line with international developments and to improve the competitiveness of the Swiss insurance sector. The new provisions include a new insolvency restructuring regime, a customer categorisation making supervisory requirements proportional to the protection required by customers as well as new rules of conduct applicable to insurance undertakings and intermediaries.
Status as of 3/11 11:40 am CET
Table of content
Good afternoon.
Following are our summaries of the civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the weeks of September 7 to 11 and September 14 to 18, 2020.
The past two weeks saw ten substantive decisions released by the Court of Appeal. Topics covered included bankruptcy & insolvency, contracts (freight), enforcement of letters of request by foreign courts, family law and insurance, as well as the usual procedural decisions relating to extensions of time and appellate jurisdiction.
Wishing everyone an enjoyable weekend.
Who should bear the risk and ultimately the financial burden of insolvent wrongdoers when determining the liability of defendants to a plaintiff? The defendants, or the plaintiff?
The Law Commission revisits this question in an Issues Paper, published last week, after recommending in 1998 to retain the traditional position.1
The Federal Government has proposed a major strengthening of APRA’s crisis management powers and has released a consultation paper containing wide-ranging proposals for financial services reform that are now open to industry comment.
In May a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services concluded its report into the collapse of Trio Capital Ltd which will have significant repercussions for financial lines insurers in Australia.
What distinguishes the Trio Capital collapse from the other major financial collapses in Australia in recent years, of Westpoint and Storm Financial, is that Trio involved a fraud. The enquiry adopted observations by Justice Peter Garling of the New South Wales Supreme Court describing the scheme as:
On 5 October 2011, the NSW Supreme Court upheld an application pursuant to s 440D(1) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the Corporations Act) for leave to bring and continue proceedings against a defendant under voluntary administration.
Over the past few months there have been a number of insurance portfolio transfers and a winding up of a general insurer. Various judges of the Federal Court have considered aspects of the Insurance Act (Cth) 1973.
Portfolio transfers
There have been two scheme transfers of insurance portfolios from Australian branches of overseas insurers to Australian subsidiaries. While objections to the transfers were raised, the Federal Court confirmed the schemes.
Amaca Pty Ltd v McGrath & Anor as liquidators of HIH Underwriting and Insurance (Australia) Pty Ltd [2011] NSWSC 90
In Saker, in the matter of Great Southern Managers Australia Ltd (Receivers and Managers Appointed) (in liquidation), the plaintiffs were the liquidators of Great Southern Managers of Australia Limited (GSMAL).