War Exclusion

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On June 27, 2017, the skies over New Jersey were clear and the ground steady. But Merck & Co., a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company, was under attack. Malware ripped through its computers, damaging 40,000 of them and causing over $1.4 billion in losses.
Merck was not the sole target. Dubbed “NotPetya,” the virus tore through the US economy, and did an estimated $10 billion in damage. (This post describes losses experienced by other companies.) The US Department of Justice charged six Russian nationals, alleged officers of Russia’s Intelligence Directorate (the GRU), for their roles in the NotPetya attack, among others. …
Continue Reading Boots on the Ground or Hands on a Keyboard: Merck and Insurers Battle Out the War Exclusion

With the circumstances in Ukraine intensifying and companies either shutting down or suspending operations in the region, the sparingly used war exclusion will become more relevant as policyholders seek to recover losses. The economic effects will be broadly felt. Some companies may have to close operations entirely, some partially, and others may have their supply chains severely disrupted. This is compounded by the worldwide risk of cyber-incidents. The US government has been adamantly warning companies to protect themselves against cyberattacks. The impact on policyholders, however, may take different forms, potentially implicating their business interruption, contingent business interruption, cyber, shipping and cargo, and political risk insurance coverages. These are only a few examples. Other coverages could be implicated.
Continue Reading The War Exclusion Will Be a Leading Issue in the Months and Years Ahead

Innovation and developments in technology bring both opportunities and challenges for the retail industry, and Hunton Andrews Kurth has a sophisticated understanding of these issues and how they affect retailers. On January 23, 2020, our cross-disciplinary retail team, composed of over 200 lawyers, released our annual Retail Industry Year in Review. The 2019 edition,…

In a significant win for policyholders, the Ninth Circuit rejected an insurer’s argument that the common meaning of “war” applied when interpreting a war exclusion, instead of the customary usage of the term, pursuant to Cal.  Civ. Code 1644, and revived NBC Universal’s attempt to recover at least $6.9 million in costs incurred to relocate the production of a television show from Jerusalem during the 2014 Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Universal Cable Prods., et al., LLC v. Atl. Specialty Ins. Co., 2019 WL 3049034, at *10 (9th Cir. July 12, 2019).
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Continue Reading It’s Not Rocket Science: Ninth Circuit Rejects Insurer’s Attempt to Invoke War Exclusion for Hamas Rocket Attack

The City of Baltimore is the latest victim of increasingly common ransomware attacks. On May 7, 2019, unidentified hackers infiltrated Baltimore’s computer system using a cyber-tool named EternalBlue, developed originally by the United States National Security Agency to identify vulnerabilities in computer systems. However, the NSA lost control of EternalBlue, and since 2017, cybercriminals have used it to infiltrate computer systems and demand payment in exchange for relinquishing control. For instance, in Baltimore, the hackers have frozen the City’s e-mail system and disrupted real estate transactions and utility billing systems, among many other things. The hackers reportedly demanded roughly $100,000 in Bitcoin to restore Baltimore’s system. The city has refused to pay.
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Continue Reading Will Insurers Declare “War”? The War Exclusion, the Ransomware Attack on Baltimore, and the NSA Cyber-Tool?

In an article appearing in CyberInsecurity News, Hunton insurance recovery partner, Michael Levine, comments on Zurich American Insurance Company’s attempt to invoke a so-called “war exclusion” as a basis for not paying business income losses suffered by snack food giant Mondelez International.  As Levine expains, so-called “war exclusions” have rarely been invoked and…