In Arch Underwriting at Lloyd’s Ltd obh of Syndicate 2012 v EP Financial Services Pty Ltd, the court had to construe an exclusion clause in a policy of insurance. EP Financial Services (EPFS) was a financial planner that had given financial planning advice to an individual and her company (the clients). The article can be...Read More

In CIMIC Group Ltd v AIG Group Ltd, the court had to determine whether CIMIC was entitled to indemnity under its Director and Officers Insurers for the years 2010/ 2011 and 2011/2012 (2010 Insurers and 2011 Insurers, respectively). Quantum was referred out to a special referee. The article can be downloaded hereRead More

The Design and Building Practitioners Act provides that a person who carries out ‘construction work’ has a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid economic loss caused by defects in, or related to, a building for which the work was done. The article can be downloaded hereRead More

In this case note in the Insurance Law Bulletin, Laina discusses AIA Australia Ltd v Sharma [2023] FCAFC 42— continuing misrepresentations and s 29(2) of the Insurance Contracts 1984 (Cth). The article can be downloaded hereRead More

Laina discussed the impact on claims of the extended statutory duty of care in the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (NSW) and the recovery of damages in construction claims at the 2023 UNSW Edge Construction Law Edge. The article can be downloaded hereRead More

In Worth v HDI Global Specialty SE, the appellant had operated a childcare business from her home prior to it being burned down 5 years ago. The appellant was an insured under Home Based Business Property Insurance policy (the Policy) but the respondent insurer had denied indemnity on the basis that the appellant had deliberately...Read More

This article has been published as Chan, Two vexed issues in arbitration — The joinder of third parties and the arbitrability of indemnity issues — (2021) 31 ILJ 85.  It looks at the approach of Australian courts to the extended definition of ‘party’ contained in the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth) and the domestic Commercial Arbitration...Read More

Confidence in the New South Wales (NSW) residential apartment building market following the highly publicised structural failures in the Opal Tower and Mascot Tower is at an all-time low. However, even prior to these two highly publicised failures, there had been a “cladding crisis” in Australia following the Lacrosse building fire in Melbourne in November...Read More

Laina accepted an urgent brief from the NSW Bar Pro Bono Scheme to act for an elderly couple with dementia who were at risk of losing their ingoing contributions to a retirement village in Goyal v West. The operator was insolvent and receivers had been appointed to sell the property on which the retirement village...Read More

Australia and most of the world have a poor track record in delivering major infrastructure projects on time and on budget. 1 With infrastructure projects expected to be a key aspect of the economic recovery following the COVlD-19 pandemic, 2 the need to adopt a different project delivery model is more pressing than ever. Prior...Read More