Ryan Kennedy

Particular examples of Ryan’s experience are:

• Acting as coverage and monitoring counsel for several domestic and overseas insurers regarding a claim on a Crime and Professional Indemnity Insurance policy. The claim relates to actions brought against a US-based claims administrator regarding services it provided when administering a class action settlement agreement in the US, which allegedly resulted in privacy violations
• Acting as coverage and monitoring counsel regarding a claim a leading Australian gaming company has made on a D&O Liability and Company Securities Insurance policy. The claim relates to a securities class action brought against the company for misleading and deceptive conduct and failure to comply with continuous disclosure obligations imposed on the company as a listed entity in section 674 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and ASX Listing Rule 3.1 as well as costs associated with various commissions of inquiry into its business activities
• Advising and acting for insurers in connection with the ‘Count Financial Class Action’, claims against Count Financial arising from the receipt of commissions and bonuses paid to Count Financial authorised representatives in contravention of FOFA reforms
• Advising and acting for the insurers of a large financial institution in relation to its coverage claim exceeding $1 billion arising from a recent civil penalties claim for contravention of the Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth)
• Acting for multiple excess insurers in a coverage claim relating to a class action brought against a major Australian airline seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for alleged omissions from a prospectus and misleading statements made to noteholders;
• Advising and acting for a major insurer regarding coverage claims arising from one of Australia’s largest corporate collapses and a reported ‘Ponzi’ scheme;
• Successfully defending a prominent insurer in proceedings in the Supreme Court of Queensland challenging the denial of a claim made on an Industrial Special Risk policy for approximately $13M on the grounds of fraud:Cassa Bedding Pty Ltd v Insurance Australia Ltd [2022] QSC 1
• Acting for a domestic insurer in relation to a claim on a strata insurance policy for indemnity valued at over $30M. The insured was asking for a 16-storey building to be re-built pursuant to the policy. The building ultimately was not re-built. The matter resolved for substantially less than that sum
• Acting as coverage counsel in a claim on a Public Liability Insurance policy regarding the collapse of an underground mine causing over $8M in property damage and business interruption
• Defending a $6.5M claim in the Federal Court of Australia against a domestic insurer. The insurer denied coverage under a policy due to a non-disclosure by the insured as well as applying exclusion clauses regarding building defects.
• Defending three proceedings in the Supreme Court of Queensland claiming over $9M in total against a global property manager regarding coordination of works that caused flooding in a high-rise building