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UK court rules 9/11 two separate events for reinsurance purposes

The UK’s High Court of Justice has ruled that the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, can be considered two events.The Commercial Court upheld an arbitration tribunal’s decision that the losses from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York arose out of two events for the purposes of four excess of loss reinsurances, according to a briefing note from law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.The court’s move to uphold the earlier legal decision is “of considerable interest to the insurance and reinsurance market”, said Herbert Smith Freehills.The Anglo-Australian law firm said the case, which concluded last week, represents “the first occasion on which the question of how WTC losses are to be aggregated has come before the English Courts.”The law firm said the reinsurances concerned permitted aggregation of insured losses, which were caused by one or more occurrences or series of occurrences arising out of one event.Having examined the various potential unifying factors, the tribunal declared itself “fully satisfied that the hijackings, consequent death and personal injury on board before contact with each tower, and then further death, injury and property damage consequent on the towers being separately struck constitute two separate occurrences which did not arise out of one event,” the firm explained.