The Court of Appeal has handed down judgment in London International Exhibition Centre Plc v. Allianz Insurance Plc & Ors [2024] EWCA Civ 1026, the latest decision to consider the way in which business interruption policies respond to COVID-19 related losses.

The judgment considers a series of five cases, all of which involved insuring clauses that respond to the presence of COVID-19 ‘at the premises’ of the policyholder. These clauses differed from those considered by the Supreme Court in the FCA Test Case [2021] UKSC 1, which was exclusively concerned with wording that responded to disease within a radius of the policyholder’s premises.

In agreement with the Commercial Court, the Court of Appeal has concluded that ‘at the premises’ clauses respond on the same basis as radius clauses, and that the Supreme Court’s approach to causation applies with equal force to this form of wording. In addition, the judgment also deals with further issues of construction that are specific to the individual wordings in the five cases, including in particular the proper interpretation of (i) clauses which respond to actions of “the Medical Officer of Health for the Public Authority”, and (ii) clauses which respond to disease “suffered” by visitors to or employees of the policyholder’s premises.

The judgment also dismisses a cross-appeal by policyholders concerning the significance of the date on which COVID-19 became a notifiable disease, holding that occurrences of the disease before 5 March 2020 will not qualify as relevant occurrences for purposes of either disease clauses or hybrid clauses.

Gavin Kealey KC and Keir Howie acted for the appellants in the lead appeal, LIEC v. Allianz (instructed by Mark Wing of Clyde & Co)

Keir Howie acted for the appellants and the respondents to the cross-appeal in Kaizen v. HDI (instructed by Viran Ram of Clyde & Co)

Sushma Ananda acted for the appellants in Why Not Bar v. West Bay Insurance (instructed by James Nicholls of DWF Law)

Please click here for a copy of the judgment.