ABN Amro Bank N.V. -v- Royal & Sun Alliance
Insurance plc and others [2021] EWHC 442 (Comm)
In the latest in a line of policyholder-friendly judgments, this
recent ruling from the Commercial Court confirms that underwriters
will be bound by the terms of policies they enter into whether they
have read them or not.
The court found no grounds for departing from the important
principle of English law that a person who signs a document knowing
that it is intended to have legal effect is generally bound by its
terms. Any erosion of that principle, which unpins the whole of
commercial life, it was noted, would have serious repercussions far
beyond the business community.
A foregone conclusion perhaps? Indeed the judge commented that
prior to this case he would have regarded as unsurprising the
proposition that underwriters should read the terms of the contract
to which they put their names. What was it then that spurred the 14
defendant underwriters to seek to argue the
