[This is the headline over a report (tagged “Exclusive”) on page 27 of today’s Scottish Sunday Express. It picks up an item that I published on this blog on 12 August. Today’s Express article, which does not appear on the newspaper’s website, reads as follows:]
Insurers who paid compensation to the families of Lockerbie victims are suing the US government for almost £60million, the Sunday Express can reveal.
Equitas, linked to Lloyd’s of London, and Aviation & General Insurance, have launched a joint action after being blocked from seeking payment from Libya for its involvement in the bombing.
Lloyd’s and Aviation & General paid out £33million to families of those killed when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town in December 1988.
They, along with New York Marine & General, also parted with £25million over claims related to another Libyan terror attack which destroyed an EgyptAir flight in 1985.
According to papers filed with the US Court of Federal Claims on July 31, the two insurers say Colonel Gaddafi’s Libyan regime supported both attacks by providing weapons, funds, airline tickets, fake passports and explosives.
However, in 2008, President George Bush blocked any further litigation over the incidents, preventing insurance firms recouping any losses from Libya.
Equitas, which holds all of Lloyd’s pre-1993 liabilities, and Aviation & General are now suing the US administration for £58million.
The court papers read: “Plaintiffs regret being forced to seek compensation from the United States, but they have no other means of redress.
“But for the intervention of the United States, Plaintiffs would have two judgements from the US Federal courts against Libya. Plaintiffs primary objective is to hold Libya accountable for the actions of its former government.”
Libyan spy Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was the only man to be convicted of the atrocity, which claimed 270 lives.
He was released from jail on compassionate grounds in 2009 and protested his innocence right up until he died of cancer in [2012].
Former lawyer Robert Black QC, who is a member of Justice For Megrahi - a campaign group which believes the Libyan was innocent - said he did not believe the law suit “had much hope of success”. [RB: I am still a lawyer. I have not (yet) been disbarred.]
He added: “The action looks to me like a try-on, probably hoping for a ‘nuisance value’ settlement from the US Government.”
A spokesman for Lloyd’s said that the company is no longer linked with Equitas and said that they have “no dealings” with the law suit.
Equitas is now controlled by Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway, while Aviation and General is owned by Ruxley, in London.
The US government, Equitas and Aviation & General Insurance all refused to comment.
[Here’s the full text of what I said in an e-mail to the journalist: “I don't think the action has much hope of success. Even if the US Presidential Order barred Equitas from suing Libya in the United States, there was nothing to prevent it doing so in Scotland (as it already had done, of course, in relation to compensation paid by Pan Am to Lockerbie victims' families: see http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/pan-am-insurer-suing-us-government-over.html). And in any event there was nothing to prevent Equitas suing in the US courts before the Presidential Order in 2008. That they were caught by that Order can be argued to be their own fault for delaying so long: after all, Pan Am 103 was destroyed in 1988 and Megrahi was convicted in 2001. The present action looks to me like a try-on, probably hoping for a "nuisance value" settlement from the US government.”]
Insurers who paid compensation to the families of Lockerbie victims are suing the US government for almost £60million, the Sunday Express can reveal.
Equitas, linked to Lloyd’s of London, and Aviation & General Insurance, have launched a joint action after being blocked from seeking payment from Libya for its involvement in the bombing.
Lloyd’s and Aviation & General paid out £33million to families of those killed when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town in December 1988.
They, along with New York Marine & General, also parted with £25million over claims related to another Libyan terror attack which destroyed an EgyptAir flight in 1985.
According to papers filed with the US Court of Federal Claims on July 31, the two insurers say Colonel Gaddafi’s Libyan regime supported both attacks by providing weapons, funds, airline tickets, fake passports and explosives.
However, in 2008, President George Bush blocked any further litigation over the incidents, preventing insurance firms recouping any losses from Libya.
Equitas, which holds all of Lloyd’s pre-1993 liabilities, and Aviation & General are now suing the US administration for £58million.
The court papers read: “Plaintiffs regret being forced to seek compensation from the United States, but they have no other means of redress.
“But for the intervention of the United States, Plaintiffs would have two judgements from the US Federal courts against Libya. Plaintiffs primary objective is to hold Libya accountable for the actions of its former government.”
Libyan spy Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was the only man to be convicted of the atrocity, which claimed 270 lives.
He was released from jail on compassionate grounds in 2009 and protested his innocence right up until he died of cancer in [2012].
Former lawyer Robert Black QC, who is a member of Justice For Megrahi - a campaign group which believes the Libyan was innocent - said he did not believe the law suit “had much hope of success”. [RB: I am still a lawyer. I have not (yet) been disbarred.]
He added: “The action looks to me like a try-on, probably hoping for a ‘nuisance value’ settlement from the US Government.”
A spokesman for Lloyd’s said that the company is no longer linked with Equitas and said that they have “no dealings” with the law suit.
Equitas is now controlled by Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway, while Aviation and General is owned by Ruxley, in London.
The US government, Equitas and Aviation & General Insurance all refused to comment.
[Here’s the full text of what I said in an e-mail to the journalist: “I don't think the action has much hope of success. Even if the US Presidential Order barred Equitas from suing Libya in the United States, there was nothing to prevent it doing so in Scotland (as it already had done, of course, in relation to compensation paid by Pan Am to Lockerbie victims' families: see http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/pan-am-insurer-suing-us-government-over.html). And in any event there was nothing to prevent Equitas suing in the US courts before the Presidential Order in 2008. That they were caught by that Order can be argued to be their own fault for delaying so long: after all, Pan Am 103 was destroyed in 1988 and Megrahi was convicted in 2001. The present action looks to me like a try-on, probably hoping for a "nuisance value" settlement from the US government.”]