Full Profile
Ronan is an insurance claims and dispute resolution specialist with qualifications in both Australian and French law. His practice focuses on professional indemnity, financial services' liability and directors' and officers' liability claims including securities class actions.
Having gained 13 years' experience with one of the world's largest insurers as a senior financial lines claims examiner, Ronan is a leader in the field of policy coverage, often advising insurers on complex policy interpretation.
In the professional indemnity area, Ronan's expertise covers a wide range of disputed matters against professionals such as lawyers, accountants, architects, engineers and stockbrokers.
Ronan has extensive financial services industry knowledge sharpened by his exposure to complex disputes against listed corporations, SMEs, associations as well as regulatory investigations and civil and criminal prosecutions against companies, directors and officers.
Ronan is a strategic litigator with astute negotiation skills who delivers results for his clients. As a result of his extensive corporate experience, Ronan adopts a pragmatic and commercial approach to policy coverage litigation and dispute resolution.
Experience
Class Actions
- Advising underwriters on coverage in respect of securities claims including two class actions against an international mining company and a global engineering corporation.
- Assisting coverage counsel in the class action arising from the 2011 floods in Queensland.
- Managing on behalf of a multinational insurer high profile class actions against ASX companies for breach of continuous disclosure obligations and misleading and deceptive conduct.
D&O
- Managing on behalf of underwriters a claim by the liquidator of a listed company against the company's directors.
- Representing an incorporated association and its directors in a disability discrimination claim in the Federal Court of Australia.
- Advising on policy coverage and assisting defence counsel in the representation of a successful insurer in declaratory proceedings concerning the proper construction of a major shareholder exclusion clause.
Professional Indemnity
- Acting for a solicitor in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in a $50 million property development dispute.
- Representing an architect in a complex design dispute with losses estimated at $15 million.
- Representing a financial adviser in a litigated claim brought by a sophisticated investor in relation to an overseas hedge fund.
- Advising underwriters in respect of a $65 million claim against an insured who performed the design, construction and commissioning of a nuclear reactor plant.
- Managing on behalf of an insurer a representative claim brought by investors against a corporate financial advisor in the Federal Court of Australia.
Financial Institutions
- Representing the interests of an investment management liability insurer in a representative action in the Federal Court of Australia arising out of the sale of synthetic collateralised debt obligations (CDOs).
- Assisting an insurer with the management of multiple representative actions against one of the country's largest agribusiness managed investment schemes and its directors.
