Policyholder Litigation Challenging the Claims-Handling Conduct of Resolute Management

Over the past decade, Berkshire Hathaway has engaged in numerous “retroactive reinsurance” transactions whereby it takes on another insurer's long-tail environmental and asbestos coverage obligations in exchange for payment of a large sum of cash by the insurer. The cash that Berkshire receives from the insurer typically is the amount of cash that the insurer had reserved to pay policyholder claims on these coverage obligations. Warren Buffet has referred to these large sums received from an insurer as “float,” characterized as “money that doesn't belong to us but that we get to invest for Berkshire's benefit.” The lure of holding on to float for investment purposes has led to aggressive efforts by Berkshire's claims-handling unit, Resolute Management, to reduce and delay claims payments to policyholders. In response, a number of policyholders have initiated lawsuits and other proceedings against Berkshire entities and their related insurers.     

Developmental tendencies in the situation of East Elbian rural labourers ∗

Abstract

Whereas orthodox economists supported the liberalization of goods and capital markets in the current global era, they typically assumed away the need to liberalize labour markets at an international level. The unexpected rise and then persistence of international immigration indicated the shortcomings of the orthodox account in theory and practice. Various recurring and contradictory or unsupported narratives were developed to ‘explain away’ the necessity or desirability of a policy of free migration, and this in spite of an ideology that otherwise promoted liberalization and choice in matters affecting goods and factor markets. There was, finally, a normative contradiction at the core of the orthodox account.