LONDON (AP) ? A judge yesterday dismissed a class-action lawsuit that Lloyd?s of London investors filed against the British government for big financial losses they suffered during the 1980s and 1990s.

More than 1,000 underwriting ?Names? had sought to recover damages from the Treasury over its alleged failure to implement European Union legislation requiring insurance businesses to maintain adequate reserves.

But a High Court judge ruled after a preliminary hearing that the insurance directive did not grant any relevant rights to the investors, and that their claims were ?statute-barred?.

?There is no grant of rights to Names on whatever basis they seek to claim it,? Justice Langley said, adding that the lawsuit should be dismissed.

Before the ruling, the lawsuit by the Names ? who include politicians, businessmen and philanthropists ? had the potential of landing the government with a compensation bill running into hundreds of millions of pounds.