Law firm Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP has announced that it will be holding its inaugural "Hot Topics Seminar for the Bermuda Insurance Market" on Wednesday, September 10 at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute.

Sedgwick lawyers - from offices in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, California's Orange County and London - will address a range of topics of current interest and concern to the insurance community, from terrorism risk to tort reform to the initial public offering securities litigation that has arisen out of the bursting of the "dot com" bubble, the company said.

Sedgwick said in a written statement that it intends to repeat the seminar annually, tailoring the presentations to the "Hot Topics" of the day.

The seminar, which is free of charge but on an invitation only basis, will consist of eight separate presentations that should offer something of interest to all sectors of the insurance community.

Richard Geddes, a partner in Sedgwick's Chicago office and host for the seminar said: "This is something we have been thinking of doing for a some time and the responses we have had suggests there is significant interest in Bermuda.

"Although Sedgwick's lawyers have frequently conducted in-house seminars for our Bermuda clients in the past, this is the first time we have invited the market as a whole".

Mr. Geddes explained that Sedgwick's interest in the Bermuda insurance market goes back to the 1970's, when the firm's lawyers first began to represent Bermudian clients.

"We have been fortunate to have witnessed the evolution and success of the Bermuda market, from a predominately captive-based domicile with a few smaller insurance companies underwriting in the international markets in the 1970s, through the birth of the highly capitalised, Class 4 international companies in the mid 1980s, to the most recent wave of expansion with the `Class of 2002' setting up in the wake of 9/11", said Mr Geddes.

The Seminar will also feature a presentation by Bermudian Sedgwick lawyer, Mark Chudleigh, a partner in Sedgwick's London office.

Mr Chudleigh will be discussing the recent English decision, Sphere Drake v EIU and Stirling Cooke Brown, which concerns fraud in the reinsurance markets involving reinsurance companies, brokers and underwriting agents based in the US, Bermuda and London.