Michael Morris

Full Profile

Michael is a re/insurance lawyer based in the Dubai office who specialises in litigation, trade-credit and political risk insurance (contentious and non-contentious), reinsurance disputes, professional liability claims and subrogated recoveries.

Michael's experience includes:

• Acting on a wide range of complex, high value trade-credit policy coverage disputes in the UAE local Courts, the Dubai International Financial Centre, and the ICC Court of Arbitration;
• Handling a wide variety of international insurance and reinsurance disputes;
• Drafting and advising on a variety of policy wordings on behalf of trade-credit and political risks insurers (both ECAs and private market);
• Defending high profile professional liability claims; and
• Pursuing subrogated recovery actions on behalf of PAR re/insurers.

Michael also has experience of advising and defending local insurers and their reinsurers in relation to Bankers' Blanket Bonds, Contractors' All Risk, Property All Risk, and Group Life Credit Assurance policy coverage disputes. 

Prior relocating to the UAE in 2015, Michael gained extensive experience of commercial and professional liability claims in the United Kingdom, acting for insurance companies and a wide range of professionals (including: accountants, architects, barristers, engineers, solicitors and surveyors). He also spent 15 months on secondment in the claims teams of two global insurers in 2010 and 2014.

Experience

Contentious Trade-Credit & Political risk

• Acting for re/insurers in a claim for declaratory relief in the DIFC Courts and in the ICC International Court of Arbitration to protect their interests in a USD80m trade-credit fraud case
• Acting for re/insurers in a claim for declaratory relief in the DIFC Court to protect their interests in a USD5m claim brought by a commodity trading policyholder
• Acting for re/insurers in connection with UAE court proceedings brought by a Sharjah based trading company to enforce a USD5m claim under a trade-credit policy arising from trades which concluded in India
• Acting for excess layer private -market credit trade-credit insurers in a USD7m claim brought by its multi-national corporation policyholder
• Acting for re/insurers in two related cases brought in the UAE Courts by loss payee banks seeking to bring claims with a combined value of USD15m under a trade-credit policy taken out by its diamond dealing customer

Non-Contentious Trade-Credit & Political risk

• Modernising trade-credit and political risk policies for a Development Bank in the GCC
• Reviewing trade-credit and political risk policy wordings for a number of private market credit-insurers, identifying and eliminating documentation risks
• Drafting various endorsements for private market credit-insurers
• Drafting and standardising NDAs for private market credit-insurers
• Advising on the enforceability of ROT clauses in various jurisdictions

Reinsurance disputes

• Acting for a TPA (healthcare) in relation to a USD6m dispute with their reinsurers relating to the recoverability of payments made a corporate healthcare scheme in the UAE
• Advising international reinsurers on a reinsurance dispute with their Qatari cedant

Professional Liability

• Successfully defending a multi-million dollar professional negligence claim brought in the DIFC against top tier law firm by a local investment bank
• Successfully defending a subrogated recovery claim against a construction contractor in the Qatar courts
• Advising investors in commercial paper on a potential professional negligence claim against a local investment bank

Subrogation

• Pursuing €6.5 subrogated recovery claim on behalf of PAR insurers against a German company in the ICC Court of Arbitration
• Pursuing recoveries for trade-credit insurers in the UAE and wider GCC