Claude L. Stuart III

Practice Areas

Insurance Coverage with an emphasis on Offshore and Onshore Energy Package Policies including Property, Casualty, Business Interruption and Related Subrogation; Major Excess Liability Exposures and Monitoring; and inter-related Admiralty issues

Career

Claude Stuart is a leading American insurance coverage lawyer handling major offshore and onshore energy and maritime insurance coverage litigation and arbitration including subrogation, corollary counseling and drafting of wordings for the London and participating domestic Insurance Markets. He is a shareholder in Hall Maines Lugrin.

He is the first and only American lawyer ever appointed as an ex officio member of and American legal advisor to the Joint Natural Resources Committee at Lloyd’s of London where he presently serves. Named a Fellow of the American College of Coverage Counsel, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a Life Member of the American Law Institute, a Proctor and Life Member of the Maritime Law Association and as one of America’s Leading Lawyers for Insurance by Chambers USA since 2011. He is a recipient of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court, Attorney Professionalism Award for “upholding the highest standards of professionalism, ethics, and civility in the practice of law” and is also named among the Top 10 Most Influential Insurance Lawyers in Texas by Business Today magazine.

Previously a partner with Phelps Dunbar in Houston, Claude values the unique directions his practice has taken and relishes the broad experience he can bring to his clients as a result. A true southern gentleman in his own right and known in the London Market as “the thinking man’s lawyer”, Claude enjoys the privilege of representing some of the industries’ most sophisticated and forward-thinking insurers and brings a unique blend of professionalism, practicality and charisma to the table.

Professional Memberships

Ex officio member of and American legal advisor to Joint Natural Resources Committee at Lloyd’s of London; Fellow, American College of Coverage Counsel; Life Member, American Law Institute; Proctor and Life Member Maritime Law Association of the United States; Fellow, American Bar Association; Federal Bar Association; Texas Bar College; Bar Association of the Fifth Federal Circuit; Southeastern Admiralty Law Institute; Defense Research Institute; Texas Association of Defense Counsel; Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association.

Publications

Chapter 23 (Presentation of the Case in Chief) for Law and Practice of Insurance Coverage Litigation (West Group). A multi-volume publication by “nationally recognized experts” and Downhole, Offshore and Blowouts: A Primer on Oil & Gas Coverage: The Offshore Energy Package Policy (2013) (recognized as a leading source).

Work Highlights

• Devising a plan with the insured oil company who was subject to a massive judgment for which it could not get appellate security, to have Underwriters themselves post the then largest supersedeas bond ever placed in the London Market and defer a coverage determination. In this manner the judgment could be jointly attacked, and the appellate court subsequently reduced it from over $250 million to less than $20 million. Coverage was then litigated with a very favorable result for Underwriters.

• Defending Underwriters from an insured operator’s efforts to establish coverage for over $200 million under an EED policy where a crucial issue was misrepresentation in procuring the policy.

• Helping draft the new version of the contingent operator’s extra expense policy (COEE) promulgated by the Joint Rig Committee at Lloyd’s.

• Defending subscribers to a billion-dollar quota share re-insurance program against a computer parts manufacturer’s claims for contingent business interruption coverage arising from a hurricane where a major issue was the status of a direct supplier.

• Successfully resolving a worldwide chemical manufacturer’s claim for business interruption against the London and Continental Markets when the key issue was a determination of the impact of other worldwide economic and coincidental factors on the claimed market losses.

• Preparing and filing the amicus brief for certain Underwriters at Lloyds in the successful case of Gilbert Texas Construction, L.P. v. Underwriters at Lloyd’s London, which established restrictions on the scope of contractual liability cover in a CGL policy in Texas.

• Advising Excess Liability Underwriters with respect to coverage and coordinating the defense for a massive oil spill resulting from a collision of two vessels where over 3,000 claims, including those under the Oil Pollution Act, were filed.

• Advising a foreign re-insurer with respect to coverage and coordinating the defense of insureds in a fire claim giving rise to over 4,000 claimants.

• Serving as lead counsel for one the world’s largest international banks in the multi-billion-dollar Enron Securities class action (the largest ever filed) and securing summary judgment of no liability for the bank.

Experience

Primarily representing various syndicates and insurers at Lloyd’s of London (including their American affiliates), with a special emphasis on both onshore and offshore energy package policies, Claude’s work encompasses all coverages contained within the package policies, including:

• Operators Extra Expense (OEE)/Energy Exploration and Development (EED) (well control/redrill/pollution) and related covers

• Third party liability including primary, CGL and excess

• First party property including business interruption, contingent business interruption and loss of production income

• Related marine coverages including P&L, hull and OPA

• Embedded professional indemnity and related covers

• Excess and coverage monitoring under reservations of rights of ongoing litigation

• Interpretation and enforcement of contractual indemnity provisions in the oil patch

• Prosecution of major energy related subrogation/recovery claims

Education