Ruth Lane

Full Profile

Ruth is a Legal Director in the Insurance, Financial and Professional Disputes team.  She has extensive experience of advising insurers on complex, multi-jurisdictional Financial Institutions and Directors’ & Officers’ claims, often involving regulatory, civil and/or criminal investigations or proceedings.  Much of Ruth’s practice involves advising on policy validity and coverage issues, such as non-disclosure/misrepresentation, aggregation, notification/attachment, conditions precedent and exclusions.

Ruth has significant experience of defending directors and insured entities in claims alleging fraudulent misrepresentation and/or brought under s.90 FSMA 2000.  She has also represented insurers and insureds, such as accountants, solicitors, and surveyors, in the defence of high-value professional negligence claims. 

Ruth’s experience includes two years as a Senior Wordings Specialist at a leading global reinsurer, advising underwriters on policy drafting issues and claims-handlers on coverage issues.  During this time, she was a contributing author to “Alternative Dispute Resolution in Practice”, published by the Insurance Institute of London. 

She qualified as a solicitor of England and Wales in 2008.

Experience

• Coverage and strategy advice to D&O and POSI insurers for a major retail bank, whose directors faced significant claims in the US and UK (including a class action under s.90 FSMA 2000), as well as global regulatory investigations, arising from a Rights Issue.
• Advised D&O insurers in connection with the collapse of a well-known UK high street retailer and the resulting parliamentary and regulatory investigations.
• Advised D&O insurers of a major UK retail bank on coverage for consumer redress schemes set up to deal with mis-selling and misconduct across the UK insurance and banking sectors.
• Advised D&O insurers of a national commercial operation on coverage issues arising from prospectus liability claims under s.90 FSMA 2000 and related regulatory investigations.
• Advised insurers in connection with notifications of potential claims against the directors of various Slovenian banks arising from the expropriation of the banks’ shares.
• Defended multiple insured directors who were the subject of claims alleging fraudulent misrepresentation and/or misleading statements in a prospectus, under s.90 FSMA, in connection with an Initial Public Offering.
• Advising insurers in a coverage dispute involving alleged non-disclosure and misrepresentation, arising from an investigation of a Guernsey financial services firm by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission.
• Advised W&I insurers in relation to claims arising from alleged breaches of accounting warranties.
• Defended numerous claims against firms of valuation surveyors concerning valuations of residential and commercial property in the UK.
• Coverage and strategy advice to Bermuda Form insurers in relation to claims arising from the collapse of the Samarco dam in Brazil in November 2015.