" CARDIFF CITY REACH SETTLEMENT WITH SALA INSURERS "

Apart from having a legal background, working for insurers and for law firms, I am not ITK about what has been paid out but perhaps I can offer some input so that the situation may appear clearer.

Firstly, prior to his death, CCFC would have wanted to insure ES against death or personal injury. I would assume that the level of cover would have been around £15m - similar to the purchase price. Whilst I do not know the intricacies of the cover here most policies would provide a payout upon death and cover salary if injured.

So the first port of call is getting the person insured. An Insurance Company (Miller Group) provides the cover and an Intermediary (broker) acts as an agent for the Insurance Company. CCFC would deal with the intermediary.

It is quite possible (although only a guess) that Miller Group might be the insurers and the broker Miller Insurance Services - 2 legally different entities.

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/breaking-news/miller-faces-10-million-lawsuit-over-emiliano-salas-death-430404.aspx

Now the situation here is similar to Car Insurance. If a broker told you that you were covered for your new car some would accept in good faith. Here CCFC appear to have been misinformed that a player will be covered once signed.

This is Professional Negligence and each Insurance Company and each Insurance Broker legally has to have Professional Negligence Cover (With a different Insurer - via a Professional Indemnity Policy).

My assessment of what has been written above is that CCFC appears to have been misinformed and that the Professional Indemnity insurer has taken the view to accept CCFC position and to either instruct the broker/insurer to pay out or they will pay out under the Professional Indemnity Insurance (Note: It is not suitable for an insurer to have a huge claim on their professional indemnity insurance) - some firms have closed as a result of not being able to get professional indemnity cover!

So I suspect there has been a significant payout. If I were to guess I would suspect at least £5m but could very well be as high as the full £15m. I suggest £5m because knowing insurers as I do they would probably argue his value was over-emphasised so a value of £10m with potential 50/50 type arguments would suggest £5m. But like I said it could well be more and next year's accounts would be interesting to read.

Is that the end of it - NO not in my opinion

This is certainly good news but this really does only cover the value of the player and any salary loss.

We still have the case against Nantes

In that case, I believe we were suing for:
a) The loss of an asset in the sum of £15m
b) The potential loss of revenue which figures of between £80m to £200m have been quoted.

As the insurer has paid out (a) is no longer a loss and I suspect that the club could remove this item from the claim against Nantes (unless insurers want Nantes to repay them)

The 2nd head of claim still applies. It is correct that through someone else's negligence, the club failed to stay in the Premier League by one point and that it is "reasonably foreseeable" (Important words) that ES would have scored at least two goals to keep Cardiff in the Premier League.

Accordingly, history tells us that Brighton remained in the Premier League and are being welcomed by Man Utd today whilst we have lost revenue by dropping into the Championship, and rather than playing Utd, we are at home to some West Wales team.

Long and short of it. Glad that the pursuit of the asset loss has been settled in our favour. And there is the possibility of more - if we win our case against Nantes for loss of revenue.

I hope this helps and, as always, happy to answer any questions.

Thanks Paul, as ever well written.

Only question I have, is it worth persuing option 2? are Nantes big enough to pay out if we win?

Nantes will be insured to cover them against losses. So if Nantes are found liable for our loss of revenue then it's will be their insurers who pay out and not Nantes themselves

Apart from having a legal background, working for insurers and for law firms, I am not ITK about what has been paid out but perhaps I can offer some input so that the situation may appear clearer.

Firstly, prior to his death, CCFC would have wanted to insure ES against death or personal injury. I would assume that the level of cover would have been around £15m - similar to the purchase price. Whilst I do not know the intricacies of the cover here most policies would provide a payout upon death and cover salary if injured.

So the first port of call is getting the person insured. An Insurance Company (Miller Group) provides the cover and an Intermediary (broker) acts as an agent for the Insurance Company. CCFC would deal with the intermediary.

It is quite possible (although only a guess) that Miller Group might be the insurers and the broker Miller Insurance Services - 2 legally different entities.

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/breaking-news/miller-faces-10-million-lawsuit-over-emiliano-salas-death-430404.aspx

Now the situation here is similar to Car Insurance. If a broker told you that you were covered for your new car some would accept in good faith. Here CCFC appear to have been misinformed that a player will be covered once signed.

This is Professional Negligence and each Insurance Company and each Insurance Broker legally has to have Professional Negligence Cover (With a different Insurer - via a Professional Indemnity Policy).

My assessment of what has been written above is that CCFC appears to have been misinformed and that the Professional Indemnity insurer has taken the view to accept CCFC position and to either instruct the broker/insurer to pay out or they will pay out under the Professional Indemnity Insurance (Note: It is not suitable for an insurer to have a huge claim on their professional indemnity insurance) - some firms have closed as a result of not being able to get professional indemnity cover!

So I suspect there has been a significant payout. If I were to guess I would suspect at least £5m but could very well be as high as the full £15m. I suggest £5m because knowing insurers as I do they would probably argue his value was over-emphasised so a value of £10m with potential 50/50 type arguments would suggest £5m. But like I said it could well be more and next year's accounts would be interesting to read.

Is that the end of it - NO not in my opinion

This is certainly good news but this really does only cover the value of the player and any salary loss.

We still have the case against Nantes

In that case, I believe we were suing for:
a) The loss of an asset in the sum of £15m
b) The potential loss of revenue which figures of between £80m to £200m have been quoted.

As the insurer has paid out (a) is no longer a loss and I suspect that the club could remove this item from the claim against Nantes (unless insurers want Nantes to repay them)

The 2nd head of claim still applies. It is correct that through someone else's negligence, the club failed to stay in the Premier League by one point and that it is "reasonably foreseeable" (Important words) that ES would have scored at least two goals to keep Cardiff in the Premier League.

Accordingly, history tells us that Brighton remained in the Premier League and are being welcomed by Man Utd today whilst we have lost revenue by dropping into the Championship, and rather than playing Utd, we are at home to some West Wales team.

Long and short of it. Glad that the pursuit of the asset loss has been settled in our favour. And there is the possibility of more - if we win our case against Nantes for loss of revenue.

I hope this helps and, as always, happy to answer any questions.

Thanks Paul, as ever well written.

Only question I have, is it worth persuing option 2? are Nantes big enough to pay out if we win?

Another excellent explanation from Paul Keevil...

Some of us have said all along that the club (nee VT) must have felt they had a genuine case but the barrack room lawyers knew better; or at least they thought they did...

Perhaps the club have been advised to drop the case or lose even more money.

It could be that they've not received anything as part of this settlement.

I guess the only way to know will be when the accounts are published.

You think Vincent Tan would quietly accept that?

I think the absence of any passive aggression or whinging in the statement is as much evidence that we need to know that the club has more or less got what it wanted.

Yeah - you're probably right.

Apart from having a legal background, working for insurers and for law firms, I am not ITK about what has been paid out but perhaps I can offer some input so that the situation may appear clearer.

Firstly, prior to his death, CCFC would have wanted to insure ES against death or personal injury. I would assume that the level of cover would have been around £15m - similar to the purchase price. Whilst I do not know the intricacies of the cover here most policies would provide a payout upon death and cover salary if injured.

So the first port of call is getting the person insured. An Insurance Company (Miller Group) provides the cover and an Intermediary (broker) acts as an agent for the Insurance Company. CCFC would deal with the intermediary.

It is quite possible (although only a guess) that Miller Group might be the insurers and the broker Miller Insurance Services - 2 legally different entities.

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/breaking-news/miller-faces-10-million-lawsuit-over-emiliano-salas-death-430404.aspx

Now the situation here is similar to Car Insurance. If a broker told you that you were covered for your new car some would accept in good faith. Here CCFC appear to have been misinformed that a player will be covered once signed.

This is Professional Negligence and each Insurance Company and each Insurance Broker legally has to have Professional Negligence Cover (With a different Insurer - via a Professional Indemnity Policy).

My assessment of what has been written above is that CCFC appears to have been misinformed and that the Professional Indemnity insurer has taken the view to accept CCFC position and to either instruct the broker/insurer to pay out or they will pay out under the Professional Indemnity Insurance (Note: It is not suitable for an insurer to have a huge claim on their professional indemnity insurance) - some firms have closed as a result of not being able to get professional indemnity cover!

So I suspect there has been a significant payout. If I were to guess I would suspect at least £5m but could very well be as high as the full £15m. I suggest £5m because knowing insurers as I do they would probably argue his value was over-emphasised so a value of £10m with potential 50/50 type arguments would suggest £5m. But like I said it could well be more and next year's accounts would be interesting to read.

Is that the end of it - NO not in my opinion

This is certainly good news but this really does only cover the value of the player and any salary loss.

We still have the case against Nantes

In that case, I believe we were suing for:
a) The loss of an asset in the sum of £15m
b) The potential loss of revenue which figures of between £80m to £200m have been quoted.

As the insurer has paid out (a) is no longer a loss and I suspect that the club could remove this item from the claim against Nantes (unless insurers want Nantes to repay them)

The 2nd head of claim still applies. It is correct that through someone else's negligence, the club failed to stay in the Premier League by one point and that it is "reasonably foreseeable" (Important words) that ES would have scored at least two goals to keep Cardiff in the Premier League.

Accordingly, history tells us that Brighton remained in the Premier League and are being welcomed by Man Utd today whilst we have lost revenue by dropping into the Championship, and rather than playing Utd, we are at home to some West Wales team.

Long and short of it. Glad that the pursuit of the asset loss has been settled in our favour. And there is the possibility of more - if we win our case against Nantes for loss of revenue.

I hope this helps and, as always, happy to answer any questions.

Thanks Paul, as ever well written.

Only question I have, is it worth persuing option 2? are Nantes big enough to pay out if we win?

Another excellent explanation from Paul Keevil...

Some of us have said all along that the club (nee VT) must have felt they had a genuine case but the barrack room lawyers knew better; or at least they thought they did...

More than that Sven, for us to be in a position where we could win the case against the insurers we had to be seen to have gone through every step of appeal, any payment before then could have been deemed an admission of guilt which would have left us exposed to the insurance being mitigated whether it was in place or not.

Similarly, it is only through the appeals process that the full extent of the tragedy and all the failures that led to it were laid bare and are documented as fact in multiple legal proceedings, including:

• McKay, was acting on behalf of Nantes and in effect their representative
• Acting in that capacity he arranged the flight with an unqualified pilot and a plane not certified for commercial travel,
• He arranged this despite knowing we had arranged reasonable alternative travel (so no argument can be made that he was acting due to our negligence to arrange a safe flight)

Additionally, the various appeals have confirmed ES was officially our player, again now fully confirmed in terms of a legal precedent.

Therefore, the appeals process has removed a huge layer of doubt over key questions in our case against Nantes. i.e.

• Was ES an asset of CCFC? (apologies for the cold language, but in the legal context it is important to identify this) - Yes, Nantes entire defence against our appeals was that this was the case.
• Was the flight arranged for ES safe and legal? - No, well documented that neither the pilot nor the plane were certified.
• Was the flight arranged by Nantes - Effectively, yes, as McKay is again now documented in the legal documents as representing Nantes. Nantes could in turn try to push the blame onto McKay, but that is now there concern not ours thanks to the evidence provided in the failed appeals process.

This leaves two remaining questions, firstly is it reasonable to suggest that ES would have contributed to CCFC avoiding relegation? If so, then how much of the loss of revenue can be attributed to us being relegated?

If we wanted to really push at this we could also ask explore how much the embargo related to this situation had cost us, and also reputational damage to the CCFC brand.

The case could very easily be made that there is a very, very significant sum that could be attached to not only the loss of ES in keeping us promoted but the knock on effect of how Nantes approached dealing with the situation has impacted the club on multiple levels all of which have damaged significant potential revenue opportunities including other aspects not really mentioned as yet such as sponsorship etc.

None of this would have been possible if we had not gone through every appeal process.

If an insurance company wants to settle it's normally because they have an idea that they'll get spanked in court.Their lawyers will have advised them to for that reason.

Some very well presented contributions there lads

At first I thought the payment from the insurance company would be a small amount just to prevent a court case and the bad publicity

However, it appears I maybe wrong and the award is possibly quite significant

Probably only find out when the accounts are released as I don’t think this figure will ever be leaked

Apart from having a legal background, working for insurers and for law firms, I am not ITK about what has been paid out but perhaps I can offer some input so that the situation may appear clearer.

Firstly, prior to his death, CCFC would have wanted to insure ES against death or personal injury. I would assume that the level of cover would have been around £15m - similar to the purchase price. Whilst I do not know the intricacies of the cover here most policies would provide a payout upon death and cover salary if injured.

So the first port of call is getting the person insured. An Insurance Company (Miller Group) provides the cover and an Intermediary (broker) acts as an agent for the Insurance Company. CCFC would deal with the intermediary.

It is quite possible (although only a guess) that Miller Group might be the insurers and the broker Miller Insurance Services - 2 legally different entities.

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/breaking-news/miller-faces-10-million-lawsuit-over-emiliano-salas-death-430404.aspx

Now the situation here is similar to Car Insurance. If a broker told you that you were covered for your new car some would accept in good faith. Here CCFC appear to have been misinformed that a player will be covered once signed.

This is Professional Negligence and each Insurance Company and each Insurance Broker legally has to have Professional Negligence Cover (With a different Insurer - via a Professional Indemnity Policy).

My assessment of what has been written above is that CCFC appears to have been misinformed and that the Professional Indemnity insurer has taken the view to accept CCFC position and to either instruct the broker/insurer to pay out or they will pay out under the Professional Indemnity Insurance (Note: It is not suitable for an insurer to have a huge claim on their professional indemnity insurance) - some firms have closed as a result of not being able to get professional indemnity cover!

So I suspect there has been a significant payout. If I were to guess I would suspect at least £5m but could very well be as high as the full £15m. I suggest £5m because knowing insurers as I do they would probably argue his value was over-emphasised so a value of £10m with potential 50/50 type arguments would suggest £5m. But like I said it could well be more and next year's accounts would be interesting to read.

Is that the end of it - NO not in my opinion

This is certainly good news but this really does only cover the value of the player and any salary loss.

We still have the case against Nantes

In that case, I believe we were suing for:
a) The loss of an asset in the sum of £15m
b) The potential loss of revenue which figures of between £80m to £200m have been quoted.

As the insurer has paid out (a) is no longer a loss and I suspect that the club could remove this item from the claim against Nantes (unless insurers want Nantes to repay them)

The 2nd head of claim still applies. It is correct that through someone else's negligence, the club failed to stay in the Premier League by one point and that it is "reasonably foreseeable" (Important words) that ES would have scored at least two goals to keep Cardiff in the Premier League.

Accordingly, history tells us that Brighton remained in the Premier League and are being welcomed by Man Utd today whilst we have lost revenue by dropping into the Championship, and rather than playing Utd, we are at home to some West Wales team.

Long and short of it. Glad that the pursuit of the asset loss has been settled in our favour. And there is the possibility of more - if we win our case against Nantes for loss of revenue.

I hope this helps and, as always, happy to answer any questions.

Thanks Paul, as ever well written.

Only question I have, is it worth persuing option 2? are Nantes big enough to pay out if we win?

Another excellent explanation from Paul Keevil...

Some of us have said all along that the club (nee VT) must have felt they had a genuine case but the barrack room lawyers knew better; or at least they thought they did...

More than that Sven, for us to be in a position where we could win the case against the insurers we had to be seen to have gone through every step of appeal, any payment before then could have been deemed an admission of guilt which would have left us exposed to the insurance being mitigated whether it was in place or not.

Similarly, it is only through the appeals process that the full extent of the tragedy and all the failures that led to it were laid bare and are documented as fact in multiple legal proceedings, including:

• McKay, was acting on behalf of Nantes and in effect their representative
• Acting in that capacity he arranged the flight with an unqualified pilot and a plane not certified for commercial travel,
• He arranged this despite knowing we had arranged reasonable alternative travel (so no argument can be made that he was acting due to our negligence to arrange a safe flight)

Additionally, the various appeals have confirmed ES was officially our player, again now fully confirmed in terms of a legal precedent.

Therefore, the appeals process has removed a huge layer of doubt over key questions in our case against Nantes. i.e.

• Was ES an asset of CCFC? (apologies for the cold language, but in the legal context it is important to identify this) - Yes, Nantes entire defence against our appeals was that this was the case.
• Was the flight arranged for ES safe and legal? - No, well documented that neither the pilot nor the plane were certified.
• Was the flight arranged by Nantes - Effectively, yes, as McKay is again now documented in the legal documents as representing Nantes. Nantes could in turn try to push the blame onto McKay, but that is now there concern not ours thanks to the evidence provided in the failed appeals process.

This leaves two remaining questions, firstly is it reasonable to suggest that ES would have contributed to CCFC avoiding relegation? If so, then how much of the loss of revenue can be attributed to us being relegated?

If we wanted to really push at this we could also ask explore how much the embargo related to this situation had cost us, and also reputational damage to the CCFC brand.

The case could very easily be made that there is a very, very significant sum that could be attached to not only the loss of ES in keeping us promoted but the knock on effect of how Nantes approached dealing with the situation has impacted the club on multiple levels all of which have damaged significant potential revenue opportunities including other aspects not really mentioned as yet such as sponsorship etc.

None of this would have been possible if we had not gone through every appeal process.

Thank you; another considered explanation from you...

Excellent piece except that the settlement can't be as high as £15m, as we were only claiming £10m