A New York federal district court affirmed an arbitration award in favor of R&Q Reinsurance Company as against its cedent, Utica Mutual, in a reinsurance dispute arising from certificates issued by R&Q reinsuring certain umbrella coverage Utica had written covering asbestos-related exposure of its insured. The parties began arbitrating a billing dispute in 2008 which, as of May, 2013, involved more than $21.7 million in disputed amounts. Utica sought coverage for four categories of loss: indemnity, defense, “orphan shares,” and declaratory judgment expense. The panel heard the case and decided in Utica’s favor only on the first category, and in R&Q’s favor on the other three. The panel did not, however, indicate in its award the precise amount owed to Utica by R&Q for the indemnity losses. Both parties made various post-award motions for clarification, but Utica never sought in any of these motions for the panel to set out the precise amount Utica was owed under the first category of loss which it was awarded. R&Q thereafter brought an action in court to confirm the award. The court found that Utica’s failure to seek clarification of the amount with the panel precluded vacatur of the award and that, “[f]or better or worse, the parties to this arbitration tasked the arbitral panel with resolving their dispute at a conceptual, rather than a mathematical, level.” R&Q Reinsurance Co. v. Utica Mutual Insurance Co., Case No. 13-Civ-8013 (USDC S.D.N.Y. Feb. 14, 2014).
This post written by John Pitblado.
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