In what was likely a shock to coal-fired electric utilities, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held on June 28, 2024, that proposed decisions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in January...more
Judgment Preservation Insurance (JPI), also sometimes referred to as Judgment Protection Insurance, has become both more requested and available in recent years. As more plaintiffs seek ways to protect court judgments, more...more
Following the breakup of large utility holding companies by trust busters in the 1930s, General Electric created Ebasco (Electric Bond and Share Company), a construction company and consultancy that, among other things,...more
Maine proposes a new rule to its PFAS legislation, while the Massachusetts Legislature considers two bills around banning specific PFAS-containing products.
Since many companies that do business in the United States do so...more
As expected, as part of the implementation of its 2021 PFAS Strategic Roadmap, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a new rule to establish Safe Drinking Water Act Maximum Contaminant Levels...more
Since mid-2022, North Carolina, California, Wisconsin and Illinois each have sued primary and secondary manufacturers of PFAS and PFAS-containing products for alleged environmental damage caused by the distribution of their...more
Multiple states have enacted laws that impose prohibitions or notification obligations on the commercial distribution of PFAS-containing products, with requirements under the laws of three states (California, Maine and New...more
1/23/2023
/ Consumer Protection Laws ,
Department of Environmental Protection ,
Enforcement ,
Importers ,
Insurance Industry ,
Manufacturers ,
Noncompliance ,
Notification Requirements ,
PFAS ,
Product Labels ,
Toxic Chemicals ,
Wholesale
EPA released a pre-publication notice of its long-anticipated proposed rule to designate certain PFOS and PFOA as CERCLA (Superfund) hazardous substances.
CERCLA hazardous substances designation would fulfill an important...more
The past several decades have muddied what once was a clear relationship between policyholders and their insurers. For pre-1987 occurrence-based policies in particular, policyholders face an increasingly familiar scenario:...more
As the number and severity of cyberattacks rise, the importance of insurance coverage to offset resultant loss becomes increasingly important. An opinion issued by the Ohio Court of Appeals is a happy reminder that there may...more
In my December 18, 2017, blog post, I wrote about “choosing the right path” to settle complex insurance claims and emphasized the benefits of private structured negotiation, a type of negotiation undertaken without the...more
A feature of most corporate liability insurance programs is the tower system of coverage: a primary policy with several overlying excess policies stacked atop one another collectively providing coverage up to a desired (or...more
Insurers generally have a statutory duty to provide a legitimate factual and legal basis to deny a claim, and to discharge this duty sometimes engage in-house or outside counsel to assist in the investigation and handling of...more
Insurance policies are legal documents. In the event of a dispute, their scope and meaning will be submitted to a court or arbitrator for interpretation. Most brokers are not attorneys. Most risk managers are not attorneys....more
7/2/2020
/ Ambiguous ,
Choice-of-Law ,
Commercial Insurance Policies ,
Denial of Insurance Coverage ,
Four-Corners Rule ,
Insurance Industry ,
Insurance Litigation ,
Insureds ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Notice Requirements ,
Policy Terms ,
Risk Mitigation
Insurers have recently argued that environmental property damage claims for “closure” costs arising out of historic pollution are not covered, because the claimed damages are just “ordinary costs of doing business.”...more
6/14/2019
/ CERCLA ,
Commercial General Liability Policies ,
Environmental Remediation Costs ,
Environmental Violations ,
Hazardous Waste ,
Insurance Industry ,
Liability Insurance ,
Manufacturers ,
Oil & Gas ,
Property Damage ,
Property Insurance ,
Third-Party Liability ,
Unmanned Aircraft Systems
Expanding the Boundaries of Coverage in the Face of Evolving Risks -
Advances in technology, social change, new regulations—developments like these challenge companies’ risk-mitigation efforts and insurance programs. As the...more
9/6/2018
/ #MeToo ,
Arbitration ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Construction Industry ,
Cyber Insurance ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Protection ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
EU ,
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ,
Insurance Industry ,
Policy Terms ,
Popular ,
Property Damage ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Transportation Industry