Reinsurance Focus

This case involves claims by Lloyds names against Lloyds, alleging that they had been misled by misrepresentations by Lloyds of its syndicate auditing and operational controls into becoming members of Lloyds syndicates. The names later suffered serious financial losses with respect to asbestos claims. The names lost the case, but then discovered additional evidence which they contended demonstrated that the judge had been misled by Lloyds. The issue before the court was whether the England and Wales Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to reopen a case upon an allegation that the Court had been misled by a party’s evidence and by fraud. The applicants, who were names at the Society of Lloyds, asserted that under the jurisprudence of Taylor v. Lawrence, 2003 QB 528, the Court had authority to reopen the case.

The Court disagreed, noting that, unlike the present case, Taylor v. Lawrence concerned misconduct by a court in that the judge was said to have been biased. Taylor v. Lawrence did not contain authority for extending the recognition of jurisdiction to reopen an appeal on the grounds of bias to a case where the allegation was not that the court had misbehaved, but that the court had been misled by one of the parties. The court cited authority directly denying the existence of jurisdiction in the latter case, providing that the proper remedy was to bring a collateral action to set aside the judgment allegedly obtained by fraud. Jaffray v. The Society of Lloyds, [2007] EWCA Civ 586 (June 20, 2007).