COVID-19 business interruption: test case update

From a forensic accounting perspective, judgments handed down in the COVID-19 business interruption test cases have been the "gifts that keep on giving".

Firstly - as covered in our October 2021 article (which you can access by clicking [here]) - Justice Jagot's decision in the tenth claim in the second COVID insurance test cases (Meridian Travel) provides forensic accountants with a neat framework for understanding and evaluating causation and proximity in complex situations involving multiple causes of loss.

And in the recent appeals to the second COVID insurance test cases (six of the original ten), we have the Full Federal Court upholding the trial Judge's ruling that insurance policies referring to the Quarantine Act 1908  (Cth) will not be considered as having been replaced by the Biosecurity Act 2015  (Cth), and thus an insured is entitled to make a business interruption claim as a result of COVID.