Quadra Commodities S.A. (claimant/respondent) v XL Insurance Company S.E. & ors (defendants/appellants)

Tuesday 28 February – Wednesday 1 March 2023

By Appellant’s Notice filed on 8 April 2022, the Appellant/ Defendant appeals the Order of Mr Justice Butcher dated 4 March 2022

Background – This is a claim made by the Claimant (‘Quadra’) against the Defendant underwriters under a contract of marine cargo open cover insurance. It arises out of what has become known as the ‘Agroinvestgroup Fraud’, which affected the Ukrainian agribusiness, and came to light in early 2019. The fraud was extensive and simple: the fraudsters agreed to sell more grain than they physically had. The claim relates to seven alleged cargoes of Ukrainian grain which Quadra alleges that it purchased the Cargoes and stored across three elevators in Ukraine. The Elevators were all owned and operated by companies in the Agroinvestgroup LLC group of companies. Quadra alleges that the Cargoes were wrongfully removed from the Elevators by third parties without its knowledge or consent by January 2019 and were therefore misappropriated, so as to engage cover under the Misappropriation Clause, or that there was a loss of goods by reason of Quadra’s acceptance of fraudulent warehouse receipts, so as to engage cover under the Fraudulent Documents Clause.
The Appellants appeal the Orders of Mr Justice Butcher dated 4 and 11 March giving Judgment for Quadra and making consequential orders for the payment of damages and costs.

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