Do Not Accept Claims From This Man II

(Via. Captains’s Quarters) Who in their right mind would accept a dubious accident report, accept the ruling of a non-independent court, then pay a claim under a government exchange rate, which is more than one tenth lower than the actual market rate? Those geniuses over at Lloyds of London of course

North Korea, the last Stalinist dictatorship, is fighting a £30 million legal battle with insurance syndicates at Lloyd’s of London, which accuse it of making fraudulent claims in an attempt to prop up its collapsing economy.

Supporters of North Korea’s claim say that the insurers are trying to renege on a risky contract. It is also suggested that they failed to differentiate between North Korea, one of the most repressive and isolated countries, and South Korea, its rich democratic neighbour, when the contract was signed.

The state-owned Korea National Insurance Corporation (KNIC) is demanding €44 million in a London court from a group of reinsurers, including Lloyd’s syndicates, for damage caused in a catastrophic helicopter crash in 2005.

The North Koreans have supplied exhaustive documentation and their claims have been authenticated by independent loss adjusters and upheld in a North Korean court. But the reinsurers argue that the nature of the regime makes it impossible to trust and that the claim is a fraudulent one intended to bring in desperately needed foreign exchange.

“It’s not possible for the North Korean regime to do anything legitimate,” says Michael Payton, of the law firm Clyde & Co, who is representing a group of reinsurers, including Allianz of Germany. “We are very concerned about the circumstances of the claimed loss.”

I may be a simpleton with a computer, but even I could have forseen that North Korea is a hostile business environment. Well, it appears NK may have swindled another naive Western institution.