Robert Ferguson

A $75 million breach of contract lawsuit stemming from the sale of the Clarendon Insurance Group to Hannover Re in 1999 has been settled just 18 days before the start of trial. The complaint by former Clarendon principals Ralph Milo and Robert D. Ferguson against Lion Holding Inc., a Delaware corporation, was dismissed with prejudice at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on March 13, 2008, with each party bearing its own costs and attorneys' fees. There is nothing in the court records to indicate whether any money changed hands as part of the settlement.

Five years after legal action was started in the United States, a trial date has finally been set for a $75 million breach of contract dispute concerning the sale in 1999 of Clarendon Insurance Group Inc. to Hannover Re. January 7, 2008 is the scheduled start date at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for claims and counter-claims between former Clarendon principals Robert D. Ferguson and Ralph Milo, on the one side, and Lion Holding Inc., a Delaware corporation, on the other. Ferguson and Milo initiated the action on June 6, 2002. A second defendant, Hannover Re, was dismissed from the case on September 25, 2002.

Discovery in a $75 million legal dispute concerning the 1999 sale of Clarendon Insurance Group Inc. to Hannover Re was due to be concluded by June 30, 2005. In one of the final acts of discovery, Judge James Francis ruled on May 23, 2005 that Hannover Re employee Trevor Bolt must submit to a deposition.

Parties who sold the Clarendon Insurance Group to Hannover Re in 1999 had to accept $25 million less than an agreed price because two reinsurers stopped paying claims during sale negotiations, it has been alleged. The reinsurers, The John Hancock

Hannover Re is being sued for $56 million by two former senior executives of Clarendon Insurance Group who claim to have been cheated out of executive compensation. Ralph Milo and Robert D. Ferguson have accused Hannover Re of reneging on their amended employment contracts which formed part of the sale of Clarendon to Hannover Re in 1999.

Robert Ferguson, who is the President of the US/Bermuda-based Clarendon insurance group, was in Germany from January 20-23 in a last ditch bid to save the proposed sale of the company to German giant Hannover Re, we have been told. Although the outcome of his visit was not known to us at publication time, Ferguson told acquaintances before the trip that the deal was "99 per cent dead", according to a source.