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The Devil in the Details: The Great Significance of the Jurisdiction and Choice of Law of a Contract

By Antony Woodhouse

Choosing the jurisdiction and applicable law for disputes arising out of an insurance or reinsurance contract may be secondary to sorting out the actual terms of coverage, but the importance of the choice should not be underestimated. A good lesson in the different approaches of even mainstream insurance jurisdictions can be had by looking at the experience of the insurers embroiled in the film finance saga, which has kept banks, insurers, reinsurers, and the courts worldwide busy for the last seven years.

Many of the disputes that arose out of the underwriting of film finance risks related to the operation of various waiver clauses, which had been inserted in insurances by the lending banks with the aim of denying insurers their usual rights in the event of nondisclosure or misrepresentation by the banks or their brokers. Questions about the validity and scope of those waiver clauses came before the English, New York, Australian, and French courts. Although not all of these gave final determinations, we discuss below how these courts did or would have approached the issue of the effect of these clauses.

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