Nick J. DiGiovanni

Partner

111 South Wacker Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60606
Phone: (312) 443-0634
Fax: (312) 896-6634
ndigiovanni@lockelord.com

Nick J. DiGiovanni leads Locke Lord’s reinsurance and insurance litigation groups, which include more than 30 lawyers nationally. He has more than 30 years of experience in commercial litigation, concentrating in reinsurance and insurance-related issues. His practice and experience involve national and international reinsurance disputes across all lines of business in litigation, arbitration, insolvency and rehabilitation proceedings. His clients include many of the world’s major insurance and reinsurance companies in their roles as ceding companies, reinsurers, and retrocessionaires.

Insurance/Reinsurance Litigation

Mr. DiGiovanni has dealt with a wide range of issues and subject matters, including disputes involving treaties, facultative certificates, MGA agreements, reinsurance pools, syndicates, mutual companies, captive insurers, cut-through endorsements, commutations, and other forms of reinsurance relationships. He has handled disputes in both the life reinsurance and property and casualty reinsurance and direct insurance markets. Mr. DiGiovanni has notable skills in insurance and reinsurance disputes including directors and officers liability, OFAC economic sanctions, life insurance insolvency actions, Anti-Terrorism Act, catastrophe bond, energy claims, professional liability, bad faith actions, cyber security issues, and regulatory challenges under most state insurance laws. The issues involved in these disputes include claims for fraud, rescission, scope of coverage, treaty interpretation, and scope of arbitration clauses. Nick also has tried and arbitrated cases involving accountants malpractice, fraud, stock and asset purchase agreements and breach of fiduciary duties.

His experience includes numerous arbitrations under the Federal Arbitration Act, a number of different state arbitration acts, and Bermuda and English arbitration law. He has litigated some of the largest and most important reinsurance disputes in recent history, including:

Successfully representing a major health care insurer in collecting damages in a $300 million dispute in Texas regarding the sale of two HMOs. The issues included valuation of reserves and the application of actuarial and accounting principles as they relate to the health care industry;
Successfully defending the London market in connection with disputes involving a captive insurance company and over $1.5 billion in environmental and health hazard claims. The case was litigated in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, Northern District of New York, the Supreme Court of Bermuda and House of Lords in London;
Successfully representing a life reinsurance company in a case of first impression regarding YRT Treat Rate increases.
Successfully representing a large international reinsurer in collecting $45 million of amounts due under a quota share treaty reinsuring Argentinean Pension Fund business;
Successfully prosecuting a case for a major U.S. reinsurance company with respect to claims of rescission on $40 million of retrocessional coverage relating to a small group medical quota share treaty;
Successfully defending a major U.S. Life reinsurer in a $30 million dispute regarding contract interpretation of recapture provisions; and
Successfully representing an international property and casualty reinsurer concerning large catastrophe losses associated with Hurricane Katrina.
Successfully obtaining a $12 million rescission judgment for a large international property and casualty reinsurer.

Mr. DiGiovanni has participated in a host of seminars, lectured on reinsurance dispute resolutions, presented a mock reinsurance arbitration before the American Bar Association Annual Meeting, and prepared a paper on the United Nations Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards and on various topical issues in the area of reinsurance law. In addition, Mr. DiGiovanni has been a consultant on many industry-wide projects including the drafting of proposed model arbitration clauses. He is actively involved in the AIDA Reinsurance and Insurance Arbitration Society.

He is regularly profiled as one of the industry’s leading attorneys in Euromoney’s Guide to the World’s Leading Insurance and Reinsurance Lawyers, The International Who's Who of Insurance & Reinsurance Lawyers, The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers and the Chambers USA Guide to America’s Leading Business Lawyers. Additionally, he was acknowledged in The Legal 500 United States-2008 Edition and The Best Lawyers in America for 2011 for his accomplishments in the reinsurance practice.