XL Capital?s Greenwich Insurance Company is suing the St. Louis Cardinals claiming the baseball team hid a study showing its stadium was contaminated with petroleum and heavy metals.

Greenwich, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bermuda insurer XL, filed a complaint on January 31 with the US District Court for the Southern District seeking to void a legal liability insurance policy it sold the baseball team in 2000. It also wants the court to rule it has no liability for costs incurred by SLC Holdings, the baseball team?s owner, in cleaning up pollutants.

Greenwich, which sells policies from its New York and Connecticut offices, argues the baseball team made ?material misrepresentations? in their insurance application because the contamination was known about, and not disclosed. The buyer stated in its application that no prior environmental studies or audits existed, Greenwich said.

A 1995 and 1996 study found the presence of petroleum, heavy metals and other potentially harmful contaminants at the Cardinals? Busch Stadium, and at a bus lot now the building site of a new stadium, the complaint said. The decade-old environmental report was commissioned when SLC Holdings and a second company bought the properties from beer company Anheuser Busch.

At the time the bill for cleaning up the site was estimated to be between $3.5 million and $4.8 million, Greenwich?s court filing showed.

SLC paid Greenwich $31,708 for the five-year insurance contract which carries a liability limit of $20 million. The Cardinals have filed two insurance claims to recover the costs of removing petroleum, lead and mercury from the sites. The clean up bill comes to $8 million after a $6 million tax break that offset costs, according to the court filing.