Aon’s
dawdling start in defence of Lyttelton Port’s $184.8 million dollar claim
alleging negligently arranged insurance has raised concerns in the High Court.
Badly damaged in the 2011 Christchurch
earthquake, Lyttelton Port was paid $449.2 million following an out-of-court
settlement with its insurers for earthquake damage, interruption to port construction
works and business interruption losses.
It then sued broker Aon alleging a failure to arrange complete
cover. Aon denies liability.
Prior to trial, Aon seeks disclosure of
documents and reports it says are relevant to the claim. Lyttelton Port has a database of some eight
million documents. The breadth of
information demanded by Aon requires discovery to progress in stages with Aon
making further requests after inspecting documents previously made available. It already has access to 6000 Lyttelton Port documents,
including 500 reports.
Declining Aon’s request for further
detailed discovery, Associate-judge Osborne expressed concern that Aon had yet
to arrange for experts to review and to analyse technical information in
documents it already has. Lyttelton Port
has legitimate concerns about delays in getting the case to trial, he said.
Lyttelton
Port v. Aon – High Court (12.12.16)
17.010