Why Greensill lost its trade credit insurance and what the courts did

analysisTrade credit insurance pays out when a buyer or borrower fails to pay a receivable. According to the High Court's account in [2025] EWHC 1380 (Ch), the notes bought by Credit Suisse Virtuoso SICAV-SIF in the securitisation of receivables originated by Greensill Capital (UK) Limited (GCUK) were credit-enhanced, that is, given extra protection against default, by insurance underwritten by Insurance Australia Limited (IAL) through its authorised representative BCC Trade Credit Pty Ltd (BCC) under two policies: a Master Policy between BCC and GCUK with Greensill Capital Pty Limited, and a Parallel Policy between BCC and Greensill Capital Pty Limited with Greensill Bank AG. Both were first agreed in 2017 and renewed in 2019, are governed by New South Wales law and give the New South Wales courts exclusive jurisdiction. Credit Suisse Virtuoso was a loss payee under the Parallel Policy, the party to which claims are paid, with an indemnity claim against GCUK if that policy failed to respond because Greensill Capital Pty Limited or Greensill Bank AG had breached it. BCC gave its own account to the House of Commons Treasury Committee in a letter of 18 June 2021, written while, it said, the validity of the policies was under investigation under a full reservation of rights: the policies whose non-renewal Lex Greensill had cited were issued, or purportedly issued, on or around 22 February 2019 by BCC as corporate authorised representative of IAL, a company authorised to act on the insurer's behalf, and were extended, or purportedly extended, to expire on 1 March 2021. BCC stated that it ceased to be IAL's representative on 30 June 2019, wrote policies from 1 July 2019 as representative of Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd., and was therefore not authorised to issue renewal terms on behalf of IAL on 1 March 2021; questions of BCC's authority were later pleaded in the Australian proceedings, and no ruling on them appears in the record. BCC also stated, as a matter of public record, that IAL's interest in BCC was bought by Tokio Marine Management (Australasia) Pty Ltd with effect from 9 April 2019. The transaction documents are not in the record, and the accounts differ: the High Court in [2025] EWHC 1380 (Ch) describes the 2019 event as an acquisition of IAL by Tokio Marine, the Committee's July 2021 report called BCC the insurance broker owned by Tokio Marine, and the Supreme Court of New South Wales called BCC the relevant underwriting agency rather than a broker. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

analysisNeither Lex Greensill nor GCUK's administrators would name the insurers to the Treasury Committee without the insurers' consent. In written evidence to the Treasury Committee's 2021 inquiry, Lex Greensill declined to name Greensill Capital's credit insurers or the cover each provided, saying that the information was subject to confidentiality agreements with over 20 insurers and that consent would have to be sought from each insurer by Grant Thornton as administrators. BCC's letter to the Committee cites Lex Greensill's oral evidence that Greensill companies had business dealings with 27 other insurers and says that from July 2020 to February 2021 Greensill and its brokers at Marsh were exploring cover with other insurers. Both are statements to the Committee; the two figures refer to different things, insurers under confidentiality agreements on the one hand and other insurers with business dealings on the other, and neither the insurers nor the agreements are identified in the record. In a letter of 9 July 2021 to the Committee's chair, the joint administrators of GCUK said that the terms of the current credit insurance policies were commercially sensitive and confidential, so that it would not be appropriate to disclose the insurers' identities or the cover provided without the insurers' express consent, which they offered to seek if the Committee sent a separate letter of request. GCUK's statement of affairs, the directors' formal statement of the company's assets, debts and creditors at the start of the administration, lists BCC, Chubb European Group SE, Zurich Insurance plc (UK Branch), Swiss Re International SE (including its German branch) and QBE (UK) Ltd together among its unsecured creditors, annotated in the copy attached to the administrators' proposals as 'potential 1st loss claims, dependant on whether assets default and insurance claims are lodged'; Marsh Limited appears separately in the creditor list. The annotation describes contingent claims: the Commercial Court recorded in [2024] EWHC 3068 (Comm) that GCUK was responsible for paying a sum equivalent to any deductible back to the insurer on a claim. The amounts on the scanned copies cannot be reliably attributed to individual insurers. ^{6 3 7 8 9 10}

analysisThe underwriters' refusal to renew was communicated months before the policies expired. The Supreme Court of New South Wales recorded in [2021] NSWSC 167 that Tokio Marine Management (Australasia) Pty Ltd, evidently the agent that wrote the policies, wrote to Greensill's brokers Marsh Limited on 2 July 2020 asserting that a named person had no authority to bind risk on IAL and that no extensions or new limits would be granted, and on 29 July 2020 that no Greensill policy would be extended or renewed; it reserved the underwriters' rights on 4 August 2020 and on 1 September 2020 gave each Greensill company notice that BCC did not wish to renew the policies, which would expire on 1 March 2021. BCC's June 2021 letter to the Treasury Committee likewise says it confirmed in writing in July 2020 that renewal terms would not be offered, reiterated by the non-renewal notice of 1 September 2020. In the same letter, quoted in the Committee's July 2021 report, BCC said that by 1 March 2021 Tokio Marine & Nichido had taken a commercial decision not to let BCC issue new contracts on its behalf to replace the expiring policies; that BCC and Tokio Marine & Nichido had by July 2020 begun to develop particular concerns about Greensill, which made them very reluctant to provide any cover, and had reserved all rights under the policies since then; and that general market conditions and UK insurance or regulatory requirements were not significant factors in its decision. The letter does not specify the concerns and says BCC would not divulge its without-prejudice discussions with Greensill. Greensill's letter of 27 February 2021 stated that the 1 September 2020 notice was not accepted, arguing that it had not been given 180 days before the end of the policy period, and requested renewal terms; on 1 March 2021 the Supreme Court of New South Wales refused the Greensill companies' urgent application for an injunction compelling IAL to provide cover, and the policies expired at midnight. ^{1 2 3}

analysisThe application, made after hours on 1 March 2021 to Stevenson J of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (Equity, Commercial List, file 2021/58429) by Greensill Capital Pty Ltd, GCUK and Greensill Bank AG, sought an interlocutory mandatory injunction, a temporary order requiring a party to act, compelling IAL to provide cover under the two trade credit insurance policies that expired at midnight; the defendants were BCC, Tokio Marine Management (Australasia) Pty Ltd and IAL, and the judge refused it ([2021] NSWSC 167). The court recorded that the two policies covered the Greensill plaintiffs and their funding partners against non-payment by account debtors and by Greensill's clients, that the cover was in the order of US$4.6 billion for some 40 clients, and that it was not disputed that the policies did not renew automatically. Greensill's case, raised apparently for the first time in its letter of 27 February 2021, was that the 1 September 2020 notice fell a day or two short of the 180 days' notice required by clause 4.2; the court assumed the point arguable for the application but did not see it as strong. On the balance of convenience it weighed Greensill's evidence of very serious consequences if the policies were not renewed, including its estimate that over 50,000 jobs, more than 7,000 of them in Australia, might be at risk, the risk that Greensill Bank AG would fall below its regulatory capital requirements and the failure of its broker Marsh to find alternative cover, against the exposure of IAL, which had not reinsured beyond midnight. It treated Greensill's delay as weighing against relief: the underwriters' position had been clear for about eight months, and by 1 September 2020 at the latest, yet Greensill instructed lawyers in London and Sydney only on 25 and 26 February 2021 and sought relief within hours of the cover expiring. ^{1 2 4}

analysisWhy the cover mattered, and why it was withdrawn, are explained in different ways. The joint administrators' statutory proposals for GCUK of April 2021 state that trade credit insurance was critical to GCUK's ability to finance sub-investment-grade clients and that from 1 March 2021, after renewal negotiations broke down partly because GCUK could not meet the insurers' collateral requirements, GCUK lost the benefit of about $4.6 billion of cover (of which $4.1 billion was in use on 8 March 2021) under a policy for newly originated assets, with about $9 billion more due to expire later in 2021. According to the proposals, key investors then said they would stop investing in insured receivables and, with press speculation eroding other investors' confidence, GCUK ceased originating new assets from 2 March 2021. Before the Treasury Committee, Lex Greensill described the loss of insurance cover as the ultimate cause of Greensill's failure and Covid as a time when many credit insurers needed more capital or had to cut cover; BCC, in the June 2021 letter quoted above, put its reluctance down to the particular concerns about Greensill that it and Tokio Marine & Nichido had begun to develop by July 2020, not to general market conditions or UK insurance or regulatory requirements; and Sam Woods, Deputy Governor for Prudential Regulation at the Bank of England and chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, said on 23 June 2021 that, as Sam Woods understood it, Tokio Marine looked at what was going on in the Bond and Credit Company in Australia, did not like it and 'pulled the plug'. Sam Woods added that it had been reported that one of the underwriters exceeded its limits and that Sam Woods had no way of verifying that. The Committee's July 2021 report sets out these accounts and concludes only that the failure of Greensill does not provide particularly strong evidence about procyclicality in the regulation of insurance markets. The insurers' and the companies' positions on the policies were contested in later litigation, in which Greensill Bank AG and Credit Suisse settled their claims under the policies against IAL and other parties on confidential terms in 2026 and abandoned their indemnity claims, and White Oak, the sole remaining applicant, took its claim to trial in October 2026. ^{5 2 6 7 3}

analysisClaims under the policies were brought in the Federal Court of Australia in ten proceedings issued between October 2021 and June 2023 and case-managed together: six by Greensill Bank AG and its insolvency administrator Michael Frege against IAL, BCC, BCC's head of trade credit Greg Brereton and others, three by Credit Suisse Virtuoso SICAV-SIF for its sub-fund Credit Suisse (Lux) Supply Chain Finance Fund (one jointly with a Credit Suisse Nova (Lux) sub-fund), and one by White Oak Commercial Finance Europe (Non-Levered) Limited (NSD 1039 of 2021). By April 2026 an eleventh proceeding, Greensill Bank AG v Marsh Ltd (NSD 344 of 2025), was case-managed with them, under orders dated 30 March 2023, 26 July 2023 and 27 May 2025. IAL, BCC and the Tokio Marine companies defended the claims, BCC and the Tokio Marine companies contending in part that the policies were not validly entered into because of fraudulent non-disclosure or misrepresentation by GCUK and Lex Greensill, among others, as described below; in September 2026 IAL said it continued to defend White Oak's proceedings. A three-month joint trial was first scheduled for March 2026 and then listed for 3 August 2026 before Thawley J; after the Greensill Bank AG and Credit Suisse claims settled in 2026, White Oak remained the sole applicant and its trial began in October 2026. Sources give different totals for the claims, each in its own terms: the High Court in [2025] EWHC 1380 (Ch) put the ten claims at in excess of US$4 billion, [2024] EWHC 2039 (Ch) described them as seeking recovery in the region of A$7 billion, the Federal Court in [2026] FCA 1496 referred to 11 proceedings with claims totalling over $7 billion, and Marsh & McLennan's quarterly report for the period to 30 September 2026 states that the applicants collectively claimed losses of approximately $5 billion plus interest and costs. The figures differ in currency, date and scope, for example in whether interest or the later Marsh proceeding is included, and none is a finding of loss; by October 2026 the claims had been settled or were still untried. In each of the jointly managed proceedings BCC brought a cross-claim, a claim by a defendant against another party, in which GCUK is the first cross-respondent, with Greensill Bank AG and Greensill Capital Pty Limited (in liquidation) as further cross-respondents ([2025] FCA 95; [2026] FCA 530; [2026] FCA 1496). The English High Court recorded in [2024] EWHC 2039 (Ch) that GCUK's administration had been recognised in Australia and that its administrators consented to proceedings against GCUK on the basis that it would be released from filing pleadings or giving disclosure, while not opposing limited disclosure by category. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8}

analysisThe insurers' defences, described by the English courts, took two forms, and no ruling on either appears in the record. The invalidity defence of BCC and the Tokio Marine companies, which attributes fraudulent non-disclosure and/or misrepresentation to GCUK and to Lex Greensill, among others, is particularised in a 53-page Annexure A common to each claim. As summarised in [2025] EWHC 1380 (Ch), their general invalidity defence alleges misrepresentations and non-disclosures in procuring cover for the Catfoss group (Catfoss Renewables Ltd, Catfoss DBT Ltd, Noviniti Poole Ltd and Noviniti Colchester Ltd), Bluestone Resources and Liberty France Aluminium, made deliberately and dishonestly with Lex Greensill personally responsible, and that these also tainted the 2019 renewal of the Parallel Policy. Credit Suisse Asset Management stated in its investor Q&A of 15 December 2022 that it was its firm position that all relevant insurance policies are valid and the insurers' claims unfounded, and Lex Greensill, in the English disqualification proceedings described below, denied having withheld relevant information from Greg Brereton or misrepresented matters to Greg Brereton or BCC ([2026] EWHC 639 (Ch)). IAL relied on a defence of lack of authority: according to the High Court's summary in [2025] EWHC 1380 (Ch), when claims were first asserted, which the judgment dates to about July 2020, IAL refused to pay on the basis that BCC and Greg Brereton had acted in excess of their authority, a defence arising from an investigation into the business written through Greg Brereton that followed what the judgment describes as the 2019 Tokio Marine acquisition of IAL, whereas BCC's letter to Parliament describes a purchase of IAL's interest in BCC. Insurance Australia Group's September 2026 announcement refers to the policies as purportedly issued by BCC on IAL's behalf. No response by BCC or Greg Brereton to the authority defence was found in the record, and the issues for White Oak's trial from October 2026 still included Greg Brereton's authority ([2026] FCA 1496). Neither defence was tested on the claims of Greensill Bank AG and Credit Suisse, which settled with IAL and other parties on confidential terms in 2026, abandoning their indemnity claims; White Oak, the sole remaining applicant, pressed its claim, non-disclosure and misrepresentation issues included, at the trial that began in October 2026 ([2026] FCA 1496). ^{6 3 9 10 7 5}

analysisSeveral rulings concerned documents and evidence. A report by Edward Cowpe, the referee appointed by the Federal Court of Australia on discovery, the court-ordered production of relevant documents, was quoted in the English judgment [2024] EWHC 2039 (Ch): it stated that GCUK holds some 168 million Microsoft files, 300TB of operational system data, data on several back-up applications, about 77 boxes of hard-copy documents and 836 laptops and 99 mobile phones, and that the administrators had passed data to regulators without carrying out their own privilege review; according to the same quoted report, the administrators said that no documents had been withheld from the regulators on the basis of privilege, and the English court noted that the administrators were concerned to limit their spending on disclosure and the applicants' access to the whole of the records. The report itself is not in the record. In that judgment, given on 18 July 2024 in case CR-2024-001426, ICC Judge Mullen allowed an application of 12 April 2024 by BCC, Tokio Marine Management Australasia Pty Limited and Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Company Limited to obtain the affirmation made on 6 March 2024 by Ian Wilson of the Insolvency Service in support of the Secretary of State's disqualification claim against Lex Greensill, for use only on the scope of discovery in the Federal Court of Australia and subject to conditions, including redaction of the names of individuals other than Lex Greensill and Ian Wilson. Lex Greensill opposed the application; the Secretary of State was neutral. The court also directed that Lex Greensill be told within 14 days which parts of the affirmations the applicants proposed to rely on in the Australian proceedings, so that Lex Greensill could apply there for a non-disclosure order. ⁶

analysisOn 28 April 2026 Moshinsky J ([2026] FCA 530, White Oak Commercial Finance Europe (Non-Levered) Limited v Insurance Australia Limited (No 3), NSD 1039 of 2021) largely rejected claims by BCC, Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co Ltd and Tokio Marine Management (Australasia) Pty Ltd to without-prejudice privilege, the protection given to settlement negotiations, over documents about negotiations in the 'Main Dispute' between those parties and IAL on one side and GCUK, Greensill Capital Pty Ltd and Greensill Bank AG on the other over the validity of the policies. The BCC/Tokio Marine parties submitted that their evidence was sufficient to substantiate the privilege, which required only that the communications formed part of genuine negotiations to settle a dispute, and that, as a joint privilege of the negotiating parties, it could not be waived by one of them alone; the court found the supporting evidence general and not tied to specific documents. That evidence, given on information from Chris Williams of Tokio Marine Holdings, stated that from about August 2020 Chris Williams was tasked with trying to resolve the dispute over the policies, met Lex Greensill, described as the principal of the entire Greensill group, together with other representatives of GCUK and of Marsh by teleconference on 27 August 2020 on a without-prejudice basis, and met and corresponded regularly with Lex Greensill and Marsh until 1 March 2021; the court made no finding on the content of the negotiations. It upheld privilege over a fourth category concerning a dispute partly resolved with Credit Suisse, ordered the producing parties, including GCUK, to reproduce the documents free of redactions for without-prejudice privilege, and ordered further discovery of the BCC and Tokio Marine parties' communications with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority on the subject of Tokio Marine & Nichido's notification of breach of 30 July 2020. ¹

analysisMarsh, which had acted for the Greensill companies under letters of engagement, was drawn into the disputes in 2023. The Commercial Court recorded in [2024] EWHC 3068 (Comm) that in August 2023 IAL pleaded, as one of its defences in the Greensill Bank AG proceedings, that Marsh was a concurrent wrongdoer whose responsibility should reduce IAL's liability; that Greensill Bank AG and Marsh entered into a confidential standstill deed on 5 September 2023 to toll, or pause, limitation periods; and that Marsh was joined as a respondent in the Credit Suisse proceedings on 7 November 2023. Marsh then obtained an anti-suit injunction, an order restraining a party from suing in another country's courts. On 3 December 2024 the Commercial Court (Simon Colton KC sitting as a deputy High Court judge, CL-2024-000433) decided to continue, on a narrower basis, the interim injunction granted to Marsh Limited by Cockerill J on 30 July 2024, restraining Greensill Bank AG and Michael Frege from bringing any claim against Marsh in Australia in relation to the engagement in the 2018 letter of engagement between Greensill Bank AG and Marsh, which ran for 12 months from 1 March 2018 and contained an English exclusive jurisdiction clause. Marsh had sought the injunction fearing that an Australian claim for misleading conduct, with a headline value in the billions of Australian dollars, might escape the liability cap of £7.5 million (later £10 million) in its terms of engagement. Greensill Bank AG and Michael Frege sought to have the interim injunction set aside for non-disclosure, Marsh not having told the court that it relied on documents disclosed in the Australian proceedings in breach of the Harman obligation, the duty not to use documents disclosed in proceedings for any other purpose; in any event they opposed its continuation, and they offered no undertaking not to bring a misleading-conduct claim in Australia. In the same judgment the court held that Marsh had not shown to a high degree of probability that GCUK had actual or ostensible authority to bind Greensill Bank AG to the letters of engagement GCUK signed with Marsh, or that the bank ratified them, and considered, without making a finding of fact at that interim stage, that GCUK more likely than not lacked such authority. It found the involvement of the bank's 2014 chief executive Danyon Lloyd, of Group General Counsel Jonathan Lane, who was not an officer of the bank, and of Jason Austin, described as a co-founder of the Greensill business, a GCUK director and a member of the bank's supervisory board without executive powers, insufficient to infer that authority. Greensill Bank AG and its insolvency administrator later settled with the Marsh companies in June 2026, as Marsh & McLennan's quarterly report for the period to 30 September 2026 records. ^{1 2}

analysisIn Australia, Moshinsky J of the Federal Court held on 12 November 2024, after a hearing on 11 November, that it was proved beyond reasonable doubt that Marsh Ltd and Marsh Pty Ltd had breached the Harman obligation, a contempt of that court, by relying on documents discovered in those proceedings in the without-notice anti-suit application in England; the court released Marsh from the obligation from the date of its order without making the release retrospective ([2024] FCA 1308, as described in [2024] EWHC 3068 (Comm)). Marsh had argued in the Australian court that obtaining the anti-suit injunction was for the purposes of the Australian proceedings and not a collateral purpose, or alternatively that the obligation yielded to its duty of full and frank disclosure on the without-notice application; according to [2024] EWHC 3068 (Comm), Marsh and its lawyers later apologised for the admitted breach while Marsh wished to challenge the correctness of the Australian decision. In that judgment the English Commercial Court found Marsh's failure to disclose the breach at the without-notice hearing a serious and substantial breach of its duties to that court, but declined to set aside the anti-suit injunction and said the breach should be reflected in costs. On 20 February 2025 Moore J ([2025] FCA 95) allowed the application of Greensill Bank AG and Michael Frege, dated 31 January 2025, seeking the judge's disqualification for apprehended bias, that is, that the judge stand aside from the ten jointly managed Greensill proceedings, because before appointment to the court on 18 December 2024 Moore J had appeared as senior counsel for Marsh Limited and Marsh Pty Limited on the Harman application and some of the submissions made there suggested a particular outcome on issues for the trial; the proceedings were referred for reallocation to another judge, with no order as to costs. The court identified as a key issue whether the Greensill Bank AG parties were bound by Marsh's terms of engagement, including exclusive jurisdiction and liability-limitation clauses, in letters of engagement executed by Greensill Bank AG for 2018–2019 and by GCUK for other periods. Marsh's involvement in the Australian proceedings ended with its settlements with Greensill Bank AG (June 2026) and Credit Suisse (September 2026). ^{1 2 3}

analysisMarsh & McLennan's quarterly report for the period to 30 September 2026 states that a claim filed in the High Court in London in June 2023 by White Oak, a loss payee, against Marsh Ltd, the broker that placed a number of Greensill's trade credit insurance policies, over White Oak's purchase of receivables from Greensill was settled in May 2025, the settlement being recovered through Marsh's errors-and-omissions insurance, its professional liability cover; [2026] EWHC 639 (Ch) likewise refers to the White Oak trial against Marsh Ltd as having settled after the trial had concluded. According to the same report, two Credit Suisse funds claiming as loss payees added Marsh Ltd to the Australian proceedings in November 2023, and Greensill Bank AG, an insured under the policies, added Marsh Pty Ltd and Marsh Ltd in November 2024 and March 2025; Marsh Ltd, Marsh Pty Ltd and other parties settled with Greensill Bank AG and its insolvency administrator in June 2026 and with Credit Suisse in September 2026, which together with the White Oak settlement concluded Marsh's involvement in the Australian proceedings. Marsh & McLennan recorded charges, net of insurance proceeds, of $144 million for the three months and $569 million for the nine months to 30 September 2026 in connection with the Australian Greensill proceedings, reflecting the settlements with Greensill Bank AG and Credit Suisse and related costs, and stated that it did not expect further charges in connection with these matters. ^{2 4}

analysisInsurance Australia Group Limited announced on 25 September 2026 that IAL had agreed to settle, on confidential terms, the proceedings brought by Credit Suisse entities against it and other parties in the Federal Court of Australia over policies purportedly issued by BCC on IAL's behalf to Greensill entities, whose claims had an aggregate face value of approximately A$2.8 billion plus interest; the announcement refers to the earlier announced settlement of the proceedings brought by Greensill Bank AG and its insolvency administrator on 29 May 2026. It said the settlement would not have a material impact on its financial position or FY27 results given anticipated recoveries from insurance, reinsurance and other indemnities, and that White Oak's proceedings remained on foot and were being defended. The announcement gives White Oak's claims as approximately A$170 million plus interest; the Federal Court in [2026] FCA 1496 describes the same claim as US$120 million plus about six years of pre-judgment interest. In that decision, on 9 October 2026, Thawley J (NSD 1039 of 2021) ordered White Oak to provide further security for costs, a fund to meet the defendants' costs should the claim fail, of $2,500,000 for IAL and $5,500,000 for BCC and the two Tokio Marine respondents, explaining that the total security should be $8 million for BCC/Tokio Marine and $5 million for IAL. The applications were heard on 6 October 2026, the day before the trial began; White Oak was the sole remaining applicant after Greensill Bank AG and Credit Suisse settled and abandoned their indemnity claims, and the trial was expected to run until the end of the year. In that hearing White Oak submitted that its claim concerned only 29 receivables, one finance programme and one policy, whereas the Credit Suisse proceedings had involved more than 400 notes, about 4,700 receivables, 17 programmes and three policies, and that BCC/Tokio Marine and IAL had spent more than $62 million in the 12 months to July 2026; the court said that spending reflected an intensive period when 11 sets of proceedings with claims totalling over $7 billion were being run together, and while accepting that the trial would be shorter than the combined hearing, said the remaining claims were still legally and factually complex. ^{1 2}

analysisInsurance litigation also ran in London. A press report (February 2024), citing court filings, states that Zurich Insurance Company was sued in the High Court in London in 2023 by the administrators of Greensill Bank AG in a dispute over trade credit insurance; the Commercial Court in [2024] EWHC 3068 (Comm) likewise records proceedings by Greensill Bank AG against Zurich Insurance issued in 2023. According to the same press report, Zurich alleged in a defence and counterclaim dated 26 January 2024 that the claims against it arose out of a 'fraudulent scheme' involving Lex Greensill, GCUK, Sanjeev Gupta and three Liberty businesses of GFG Alliance, and that deliberate or reckless misrepresentation and non-disclosure entitled it to avoid the policies; the report put the dispute at $405 million. A spokesperson for Lex Greensill said that Lex Greensill 'wholly rejects' the allegations as without foundation and would address them in a defence and any counterclaims, and a GFG Alliance spokesperson said GFG 'was not involved in any insurance arrangements which Greensill had in place'. These are allegations in an insurer's statement of case as reported by the press; the particulars of the claim, Zurich's defence itself and the outcome of the London proceedings are not in the record, and no court ruling on the allegations was found. ^{3 4}

analysisThe insurance history was also part of the director disqualification proceedings, in which the court can bar a person from acting as a company director, brought against Lex Greensill (High Court CR-2024-001426). In the 'Catfoss Allegations' the Secretary of State for Business and Trade alleged that from September 2018 Lex Greensill made, or caused GCUK to make, a series of dishonest misrepresentations and non-disclosures to trade credit insurers covering GCUK's finance to Catfoss Renewables Ltd and Catfoss DBT Ltd, exposing GCUK and its investors to the risk that the policies would be avoided and further cover refused; the statement of matters said this risk had eventuated, with insurers declining claims for approximately US$4.6 billion of investor losses, and the Insolvency Service's pre-action letter of 15 November 2023 had alleged that the misrepresentations invalidated all cover and led the insurer to decline claims totalling $4.8 billion. In the 'Insurance non-disclosure Allegations' the Secretary of State alleged that from August 2020 Lex Greensill made misrepresentations and non-disclosures to the boards of GCUK and Greensill Capital Pty Limited about the status of the trade credit insurance, including that the insurers were investigating policies and endorsements worth over US$11.5 billion, had refused to acknowledge that they were on risk and had served notice of non-renewal; the pre-action letter had alleged that this failure to tell the boards of the likely non-renewal, with insurers declining claims of $2.19 billion relating to investor losses, prevented the directors from making informed decisions. Lex Greensill denied withholding relevant information from Greg Brereton or making misrepresentations to Greg Brereton or BCC, contended that the Catfoss allegations rested on the insurers' defence in Australia rather than an independent investigation, and said that memos from July to September 2020 showed that, on learning of Greg Brereton's dismissal by BCC, Lex Greensill informed the companies' executive team, which with the approval of the Chairman and the head of the Risk Committee resolved not to circulate the information more widely; Lex Greensill also said the non-disclosure allegation was advanced without investigating the records of the directors said not to have been informed ([2026] EWHC 639 (Ch)). Lex Greensill's strike-out application was dismissed on 18 March 2026. Neither set of allegations was tried: the proceedings ended when the Secretary of State accepted a nine-year disqualification undertaking on 2 June 2026, running from 23 June 2026, in which Lex Greensill does not dispute certain facts for the purposes of the proceedings only, and the Insolvency Service's announcement describes the conduct by reference to the Katerra transactions and does not mention the Catfoss or insurance non-disclosure allegations. ^{1 2 3}

analysisLex Greensill drew on the insurance litigation in two applications. In a 2025 application to stay part of the disqualification proceedings, Lex Greensill contended that the Parallel Policy, to which Greensill Capital Pty Limited and Greensill Bank AG were party, carried more limited disclosure obligations than the Master Policy, to which Greensill Capital Pty Limited and GCUK were party, so that it might respond where the Master Policy would not, and that any losses IAL or BCC suffered on a Parallel Policy claim could then be recouped from Greensill Capital Pty Limited and GCUK for breach of the more onerous Master Policy obligations. Counsel for Lex Greensill also submitted that there was evidence that, if the insurers succeeded in their defences in Australia, the resulting increase in the applicants' claims would cut the dividend, the distribution paid to GCUK's unsecured creditors, from 16 cents to 6 cents in the dollar. Counsel for the Secretary of State did not dispute in general terms that failure of the Australian applicants would reduce that dividend, but submitted that the evidence did not explain how creditors' interests would be better served by deciding the disqualification proceedings after the Australian proceedings, or why those interests should be preferred. These were submissions recorded in [2025] EWHC 1380 (Ch), not findings: the court made no finding on the terms or effect of the policies, described the argument for a stay on the dividend ground as having very little merit, and dismissed the stay application. The Greensill Bank AG and Credit Suisse claims against IAL were later settled on confidential terms, announced in 2026, and the record does not state the effect on the unsecured dividend. In a 2026 application to strike out the disqualification proceedings, Lex Greensill relied on allegations made by Credit Suisse in the Australian proceedings that Greg Brereton had committed a serious fraud to mislead or misrepresent the status of the insurance policies Greg Brereton had written, arguing that if those allegations were right the decision not to extend the companies' policies in March 2021 and the insurers' refusal of cover resulted from Greg Brereton's conduct rather than Lex Greensill's own; the application also relied on material from Marsh Ltd that emerged in the English White Oak trial. That is Lex Greensill's account, recorded in [2026] EWHC 639 (Ch), of allegations in litigation: Credit Suisse's pleading is not in the record, the allegations were not adjudicated before the Credit Suisse claims settled in 2026, and no response by Greg Brereton was found. The application failed on 18 March 2026 and, with the undertaking accepted by the Secretary of State on 2 June 2026, the matter was never tried. ^{4 5 1 2}