Commercial Losses

A Biscuit manufacturer in Scotland

The company was previously part of the Nestle group and was equipped to produce a high volume of wafer based biscuits. These were sold predominantly into supermarket chains as own label products as well as white label branded. The business suffered a serious fire and as a result lost the use of a number of their wafer ovens. The factory building was damaged and the parts that were structurally unaffected were smoke damaged.

Our client purchased the business assets of a company which manufactured wafer biscuits. Included within the assets were 12 large baking ovens which although old were an essential part of the manufacturing process. Because of the age of the assets the book value was less than £0.25m. 
biscuit case

Supermarket Chain - Dubai

From the reputation gained from successfully handling the loss on one of the first and largest superstores in Dubai our expertise was once more required when the main warehouse for the organisation was destroyed by fire and the supermarkets that drew stock from it began to suffer.

It was a race against time to find alternative premises and to restock with replacement or alternative stock where a like for like line was unavailable. The resulting claim was complex in identifying the losses at retail and wholesale levels and to demonstrate the margins lost for each.

A Steel Stock Company’s moving experience

One of the largest UK operators had one of their premises Compulsorily Purchased. The Company had to operate in parallel from new and old site during the move.  Compensation was obtained for the costs of operating these two sites, plus the fit out costs of the new site, and loss of profits suffered during the relocation and the time it took to re-establish normal trading levels.

Explosion victims in Toulouse

Massive explosion at AZF site in Toulouse resulted in loss of 31 lives, a huge number of injuries, damage to over 30,000 homes and four hundred company sites. A local office was set up to help victims obtain compensation, including business interruption claims for non-insured companies and retailers who experienced losses due to residents and workforce permanently leaving the area. Many businesses dependent on the town exhibition hall and stadium will continue to suffer loss of business for at least a year. CCI by making regular applications for payments on account minimise their cash flow problems.

Spanner in the works

Contractors at manufacturing company dropped spanner into a vat seriously damaging the lining. Insurance policy covered loss of profits in UK, but did not give international cover.  Claim's assistance was provided, obtaining for the client both an amount from insurers in respect of the UK loss, and a further amount from the negligent contractors in respect of the uninsured international losses suffered by the company. We also assisted insurers in their subrogation claim against the contractor.

Compensation Schemes / Class or Group Actions

Firearms Amendment Act 1997

UK government Firearms Amendment Act prohibited ownership and sale of handguns. Manufacturers, retailers, individual owners and Rifle Ranges suffered losses. We encouraged the Industry to form the 'Firearm's Industry Compensation Group' (FICG) which successfully lobbied for the trade to be included in the scheme.

We prepared and negotiated some 3000 claims for the trade and private individuals using a network of valuation centres across the UK that we designed and operated. A key part of the success of the hand in was as a result of us working closely with the firearms industry and the Home Office to build a complete database of handguns and their values which was used for valuing the stock being surrendered.

Pollution - Oil Tanker disasters

The Liberian tanker Braer, grounded at the southern end of Shetland, was possibly the biggest oil spill in history. We successfully prepared the case for the claims from Fish processors for loss of profits, Salmon farmers for price damage and the tourism industry for generic marketing.

We also acted for the fishing industry when the Sea Empress incident occurred in Wales and more recently in acting for members of the tourist industry and fishing industry associated businesses following the Erika disaster off the coast of Brittany, France.

In all cases we established a local office which was staffed over the interruption period so that regular interim claims could be submitted to enable the expected income to continue for those in the fishing industry who depended on it.

Worlds largest Personal Injury scheme and other Major Projects

During his time as Managing Director of Elision Ltd Adrian Maurice was intimately involved with:

1) The DTI's Miners Compensation scheme. The worlds biggest personal injury scheme for 570,000 miners suffering from Chronic Obstructive Lung disease. Adrian was responsible for the design of the medical assessment scheduling system and software, as well as the collection of the medical records from approximately 50% of all the GP's Hospitals and DWP offices in the country.  miners case study.pdf

2) Having established a unique capability for scanning medical records a significant piece of consultancy was undertaken for the NHS information Authority to explore the possibility of digitising the medical records throughout the country. After this piece of work was completed but before a pilot could be commissioned the NHSIA was dissolved and the ill fated National Programme began.  nhsia case study.pdf

3) With the unique experience of designing, building and operating the claims systems for the Miners and Firearms compensation schemes together with  the scanning capability being demonstrated on medical records the next challenge was to provide a solution for the NHS Pensions Agency who had 2.2million files in a warehouse that had no more room. The story of how the NHSPA went paper lite is here... nhspa case study.pdf