Legislative trends

Many EU member states have failed to meet the 30 April 2007 deadline for introducing new environmental provisions into national law.

A new report, ‘Recent legislative and judicial trends in continental Europe affecting the casualty insurance industry’, looks at key trends in the legal environment that are impacting or are expected to impact insurers and reinsurers covering legal liability risks in continental Europe. The primary theme is the transposition of the new EU Environmental Liability Insurance Directive into the local law of each country.

David Lewin, managing director with responsibility for general liability lines within Guy Carpenter’s international casualty specialty practice, Commented: ‘Most of the EU territories on which we focus our review either failed to meet the deadline for the transposition of this law or have not yet submitted their draft local law for parliamentary approval.

We are also seeing differences in the way the directive is being transposed in the various countries.’ The report covers a number of major markets in Continental Europe, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. It has been produced by Guy Carpenter working closely with the local continental European offices of DLA Piper to highlight the legislative and judicial issues of greatest importance and impact on the casualty insurance and reinsurance industry in each territory from May-September 2007.

A copy of the full report is available for download at www.guycarp.com.