Hannes is a senior associate in the Brisbane office with extensive experience in insurance and commercial litigation for claims against financial institutions, professional liability and defence work as well as providing coverage advise to insurers and re-insurers both locally and globally.
Hannes is a senior associate in the Brisbane office with extensive experience in insurance and commercial litigation for claims against financial institutions, professional liability and defence work as well as providing coverage advise to insurers and re-insurers both locally and globally.
Hannes is a Senior Associate in the Professional & Financial Disputes team, based in Brisbane since February 2021.
Hannes focuses on insurance and commercial disputes in financial lines (including buyer side warranty and indemnity) as well as professional indemnity and directors’ and officers’ liability. Hannes further provides coverage advice on various aspects of short term policies to local and global insurers, and re-insurers alike.
In recent years, Hannes has also been involved in an increasing number of cyber claims.
Hannes has a particular interest in claims and disputes against professionals involved in the mining, construction and engineering industries as well as in the auditing profession.
Hannes is duly admitted to the Supreme Court of Queensland and the High Court of South Africa.
Experience
Professional Indemnity – Advised on cover and dealt with a broad range of claims against engineers, architects, auditors, financial advisors and investment fund managers. Some of the claims have proceeded to litigation where we act as defence counsel.
Class Actions (Litigation) – Worked on two class actions where we have been retained as defence counsel. One deals with claims against the alleged negligent conduct of engineers that resulted in substantial property damage and business interruption estimated to be in excess of AUD 1 billion. The second relates to allegations against an ASX listed company that it engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in the publishing and issuing of shares. The claim is estimated to be in excess of tens of millions of AUD.
Warranty and Indemnity (Buyer side) - Advised on cover and dealt with various claims for alleged breaches of seller warranties regarding material contracts, accounting errors and non-payment of liabilities. The claims have all been in excess of AUD 10 million and covered both transactions for the sale of shares and purchasing the target entity as a going concern.
Directors & Officers – Advised on cover and dealt with claims under both insuring clauses A (directors and officers) and B (company reimbursement) and dealt with one matter that included the consideration of cover under a crime extension. These claims were all in excess of AUD 1 million with the largest being against an auditing firm in an amount in excess of AUD 50 million.
Cyber (Breach Response) – Dealt with a number of breach response claims and a couple of recovery actions against third party IT providers.
Cyber – Successfully dealt with claims that required notification to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner including a claim that was likely only the second one of its kind in Australia.
