The market for solvent insurers' schemes of arrangement to estimate and pay-off long-tail liabilities and liberate tied up capital is set to shrink dramatically as a result of yesterday's ruling by the High Court on the British Aviation Insurance Company (BAIC) case, says Ipe Jacob, head of Grant Thornton's Financial Markets group.
Jacob, who back in the mid-90s devised and implemented the UK's first ever approved solvent insurer scheme said: "While in the past the vote of a small minority of creditors could effectively result in a scheme that bound all, following yesterday's ruling a clear precedent has been set – that no scheme for a solvent insurer can be binding on all creditors without full support.
"With most schemes representing hundreds if not thousands of creditors, this ruling is likely to see the market for solvent insurers schemes shrink dramatically", he concluded.
