Tropp v. Lloyds

22 July 2011. INPRIS - Institute for Law and Society and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights offer an educational event

Tropp v. Lloyds - A Talk by Richard A. Tropp

Friday, 22 July 2011, 2:30 PM

Admission only by invitations. R.S.V.P. by Friday, July 22, 12:00 PM to inpris at inpris.pl.

TARGET AUDIENCE: lawyers with interest in: business law, human and civil rights, constitutional law, comparative civil procedure, powers of regulatory agencies, consumer law, investor protection, uniqueness of the British law in Europe, UK-US relations

IN THE TALK, Tropp will describe his experience in the Tropp v. Lloyd’s litigation, part of a large, international dispute involving over $20 Billion worth of claims against several thousand people. For eight years, in European and American courts, Tropp fought The Corporation of Lloyd’s which oversees the world’s leading and oldest insurance market (founded 1688). Tropp’s account will offer his subjective view at legal system in action at the intersection of business law and civil/human rights, including the following topics:

• constitutional standards for enforcement of foreign judgments in the U.S.
• constitutional review of choice of law and choice of forum clauses
• comparison of standards for access to justice (right to be heard) in the U.K and the U.S.
• reinsurance law - as it involves Lloyd’s “Names” and their “Syndicates”
• binding force of bylaws in the British law as compared to legislation and contracts
• immunity of Lloyd’s as a regulator in the U.K.
• management of complex litigation in the U.K. involving large number of parties
• rules for service in international proceedings via special agents
• the power of the conclusive evidence clause under British law.

Q&A session and discussion will follow.

RICHARD A. TROPP is the head of a Washington D.C. investment advisory firm which combines private equity and economic development which advised EBRD on setting up the first regional venture capital funds in Russia and private equity restructuring funds in the mid-1990s "post-Communist transition" countries of Eastern Europe. For 7 years Tropp was an Adjunct Professorial Lecturer at the graduate School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, teaching on "Entrepreneurship and Development", on the application of finance to economic development.

Background reading from the press:

The Independent, 23 January 2005, The 'dummy agent' and the Names who could not say 'no'

The Wall Street Journal, 27 December 2007, A Legal Battle Against Lloyd's Gives Rare View