The Greensill group packaged up bill “receivables”, which had been offered to traders. Insurance was key to traders being glad they had been protected if issues went awry.
Creditors are actually searching for to gather on insurance claims after Greensill Group entities, together with Greensill Bank, collapsed in early 2021, and are submitting Federal Court lawsuits. But insurers together with IAG are defending the issues.
The disputes zero in on insurance policies that Greensill group entities signed from 2017 by way of Sydney-based insurance company Bond & Credit Co (BCC), which on the time was half-owned by IAG and is now absolutely owned by Japan’s Tokio Marine.
Among these suing is White Oak Commercial Finance Europe, searching for $US146 million ($232 million) for money owed allegedly owed by prospects of GFG Alliance’s Liberty Commodities, a part of metals entrepreneur Sanjeev Gupta’s group. Mr Gupta was Greensill Capital’s greatest shopper.
BCC is focused in that lawsuit and had maintained in an earlier defence that it was “induced” to make insurance agreements resulting from “non-disclosures and misrepresentations” by Greensill group entities. These included allegations of consumers being non-existent and the charging of “exorbitant” charges.
In his defence, Mr Brereton mentioned he “would not have signed the customer endorsements for and on behalf of BCC had he been aware of those matters”.
Mr Brereton was dismissed from BCC in July 2020, based on statements made by BCC in earlier courtroom filings.
The insurance veteran, who additionally had stints at QBE and Westpac, additionally denied having himself made any false or deceptive representations. He has not responded to a number of requests for remark.
His defence maintains that IAG “was aware” that insurance policies, which had been signed in 2019, “had been entered into on [IAG’s] behalf”. IAG had accepted premiums for these insurance policies and obtained month-to-month stories from BCC figuring out premiums, his defence states.
That contrasts with IAG’s earlier defence, which acknowledged that it “did not know” a 2019 coverage “had been issued”.
As a legal backup, Mr Brereton has additionally argued that if he was discovered answerable for any losses, then any damages ought to be proportionally divided up with different entities.
If he was discovered to have engaged in contravening conduct, then IAG ought to shoulder some blame for deceptive him into believing that his and BCC’s actions had been authorised, his defence states.
Mr Brereton describes himself on LinkedIn as having overseen the “development of a new offer in trade credit insurance in Australia” with insurance company BCC launching into the market in 2016.
It later grew to become Greensill group entities’ greatest insurer, stunning others in the insurance business.
As beforehand reported, Mr Greensill, who lives in England, has been personally named in BCC’s defence as being “alleged to have had known that [certain] matters would be material and to have acted deliberately on behalf Greensill [entities] not to disclose them”.
He informed a UK parliamentary inquiry final yr that “at no point would my firm have engaged in financing receivables that we knew to be fraudulent”.
Tokio Marine battle
Meanwhile, Tokio Marine has been given a month by the Federal Court to clarify why it’s resisting requests to supply paperwork demanded by one of many collapsed agency’s collectors.
White Oak has served subpoenas on IAG and Tokio Marine, in addition to Marsh, Greensill Capital’s insurance dealer.
Tokio Marine and Marsh are resisting White Oak’s makes an attempt to get info, submitting functions with the courtroom to “set aside” their subpoenas.
The Federal Court this week ordered Tokio Marine should present proof of why it doesn’t wish to present the data requested by late November. Marsh was additionally beforehand ordered to supply proof for its protests.
IAG has maintained that it has no “net” insurance publicity to commerce credit score insurance policies offered by means of BCC.
Tokio Marine has individually alleged that Greensill Capital acted “fraudulently” by failing to reveal materials info required for insurance and has mentioned that it’ll not pay out on insurance insurance policies.