Ahmed & Ors v White & Co (UK) Limited & Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE [2025] EWHC 2399.
In a judgment handed down on 22 September 2025, His Honour Judge Pearce dismissed a claim brought by 176 Claimants against a firm of accountant’s (“WCUL”) and its professional indemnity insurer (“Allianz”). 4 New Square’s Clare Dixon KC and Hannah Daly acted for the successful insurer, Allianz.
The Claimants alleged that they had been given negligent advice by WCUL regarding their investments into a variety of tax mitigation schemes and, consequently, brought a claim against both WCUL and Allianz (the latter pursuant to the Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 2010). The trial was to determine whether, assuming that WCUL were liable to the Claimants, Allianz would be required to indemnify WCUL in respect of those claims.
The Judge found, following a 3-week trial, that none of the Claimants’ claims had been notified to Allianz. In so finding he considered the ambit of the notifications relied upon and whether panel solicitors instructed by WCUL and Allianz, had acted as agent of WCUL and/or Allianz for the purposes of notification.
In the alternative, the Judge found that the majority of the individual claims:
– Comprised a single claim pursuant to the terms of a “Related Claims” provision which stated that “any Claims alleging, arising out of, based upon or attributable to the same facts or alleged facts, or circumstances or the same Wrongful Act, or a continuous repeated or related Wrongful Act” shall be deemed to be a single claim; or
– Were to be aggregated by reason of a “Tax Mitigation Endorsement” which provided that claims arising from investments which were “pre-planned artificial transactions designed to achieve a specific tax outcome” were subject to a single limit of indemnity.
Clare and Hannah were instructed by Jane Williams of Clyde & Co LLP
A link to the judgment is here.
