SLIDE 3 Where there is no express or implied
choice of law . In some cases involving global policies there may be an express or even an implied choice of more than one governing law (see box, More than one governing law). Express choice of law The parties may include a clause in the pol- icy providing that it is to be governed by a particular system of law .
- UK. In relation to risks situated outside the
EEA, the parties are free to choose the ap- plicable law (Article 3, Rome Convention). Concerning risks situated within the EEA, the FSMA Regulations have also been in- terpreted by the English courts as allowing the parties the same unrestricted freedom to choose the governing law of the policy . If this interpretation is correct, the position would be the same under both the Conven- tion and the FSMA Regulations: an express choice of law in an insurance policy would prevail wherever the risks are located. US.In the US, the courts of those states that follow the Restatement may choose to ap- ply section 187 of the Restatement, which deals with the position where the parties have chosen a particular law . The law of the state chosen by the parties will be applied unless either (section 187(2), Restatement):
“The chosen state has no substantial re-
lationship to the parties or the transaction and there is no other reasonable basis for the parties’ choice”.
“
Application of the law of the chosen state would be contrary to a fundamental policy of a state which has a materially greater interest than the chosen state in the determination of the particular issue and whichwould be the state of the applicable law in the absence of an effective choice of law by the parties.” Implied choice of law Even if there is no expressly stated choice of law clause in an insurance policy , the par- ties may still in effect have agreed a choice of law .
- UK. The English courts will look at the
terms of the contract and the surrounding circumstances to decide whether or not the parties may have still chosen a particu- lar law in the absence of an express provi-
- sion. Both the Convention and the FSMA
Regulations require that the choice must be “demonstrated with reasonable cer- tainty by the terms of the contract or the circumstances of the case” (Article 3(1), Rome Convention; Reg 6(1), FSMA Regu- lations). In other words, there must be a “real” choice of law rather than a tenuous
The official commentary on the Rome Convention (the Giuliano-Lagarde Re- port) provides the following non-exhaus- tive list of examples of circumstances that may be taken into account in demonstrat- ing a “real” choice of a particular law:
The contract is in a standard form
which is known to be governed by a partic- ular system of law, such as a standard Lloyd’s policy of marine insurance.
There is a previous course of dealing
between the parties under contracts con- taining an express choice of law.
There is a choice of a particular forum. The contract refers to the laws of a par-
ticular legal system.
- US. The Restatement does not have a direct
and express equivalent to the UK concept of
Commercial and dispute resolution: insurance coverage disputes 3
PLCCross-border Quarterly ■ January-March 2006 ■ The journal for subscribers to www.practicallaw.com/crossborder
3
An issue that sometimes arises in the con- text of global insurance policies is whether more than one system of law applies to the
- policy. A global insurance policy will usu-
ally have a number of different insureds, of- ten subsidiaries of the principal policy- holder.
- UK. Under UK law the parties may agree that
different systems of law will apply to differ- ent parts of the policy. However, the English courts have so far been reluctant to imply a choice of different systems of law in a global insurance policy:
In American Motorists Insurance Co (Am-
ico) v Cellstar Corporation and another ([2003] Lloyd’s Rep IR 295) (see box, Choice of law issues: the Amico case), the in- surer argued that its relationship with the UK subsidiary (Cellstar UK) was subject to a dif- ferent governing law (that is, UK law) to that governing its relationship with the main poli- cyholder (Cellstar). The Court of Appeal re- jected this argument, stating, that “neither the parties nor the Rome Convention could sensibly be taken to have intended to scissor up the policy negotiated and issued in Hous- ton and to subject different aspects of it to different governing laws” (Mance LJ). It drew attention to the potential problems that could arise with such an approach, particu- larly where different countries had different principles or remedies governing matters such as non-disclosure or breach of warranty.
In CGU International Insurance Plc v
Ashleigh Szabo & Others ([2002] Lloyd’s Rep IR 196), the policyholder argued that a global liability policy was severable, there being separate contracts with each named
- insured. The court decided that the global li-
ability policy provided for a uniform contrac- tual framework and there was nothing to sug- gest that the definition of “the insured” un- der the policy was intended to have a differ- ent meaning according to the law of the country of the person claiming.
In El Dupont de Nemours & Co v IC Agnew
& Others ([1987] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 585), the Court of Appeal considered choice of law un- der a global product liability policy in two ex- cess layers comprising 16 separate policies, with Lloyd’s as the lead insurer on both lay-
- ers. The following policies were issued in
several different jurisdictions including The Netherlands, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware. None of the policies con- tained an express choice of law clause. The insurers argued that the proper law of all
- f the following policies was not the same as
that of the lead Lloyd’s policy. The Court of Appeal rejected this argument and stated that, while a following policy could contain an express or implied choice of law different from that
the lead policy, there was a prima facie inference that a following policy is gov- erned by the same law as the policy it follows. The Court of Appeal decided that there was an implied choice of UK law in the lead Lloyd’s policies and on the evidence there was no reason why the same law should not apply to the following policies.
- US. The courts in those states that follow the
Restatement (Second) Conflict of Law Rules (Restatement) may apply section 187 to de- termine the appropriate law where there has been an express choice by the parties of dif- ferent systems of law for different parts of the
- policy. The Restatement does not provide ex-
pressly for an implied choice of law by the parties (see main text, Implied choice of law: US).
More than one governing law