Michael K. Robles is partner in Crowell & Moring's New York office, where he concentrates his practice on matters relating to insurance and reinsurance dispute resolution. Mike has been involved in dozens of negotiations, mediations, arbitrations, and litigations involving a litany of substantive and procedural issues. Mike has been at the forefront of some of the highest profile cases involving the insurance and reinsurance industry over the past decade, including disputes relating to sexual molestation and abuse; finite reinsurance (civil and criminal); worker's compensation carve-out reinsurance; bad faith run-off practices under traditional reinsurance contracts and LPTs, stop loss, and 100 percent reinsurance agreements; and life insurance and reinsurance, including reinsurance of variable annuities and viaticals/life settlements.
The issues involved in these matters have run the gamut and ranged from misrepresentation, non-disclosure, and rescission cases; to complex issues of contract construction and underwriting intent; to issues relating to number of occurrences, including aggregate extension clauses and "event" language, consolidation, privilege and access to records, LOC/security disputes, DJ expenses, ECO, XPL, allocation, multi-year and stub policies (including annualization), acceleration of reinsurance obligations, pro-ration of treaty retentions, and everything in between. Some examples of Mike's representations include:
- Obtained 100 percent relief, including 100 percent of the attorneys' fees incurred by our client, in an arbitration against a Japanese reinsurer which sought rescission of dozens of reinsurance contracts and the return of millions of dollars in loss payments.
- Represented ceding companies against reinsurers who allegedly adopted/implemented "Slow Pay, No Pay" schemes to force favorable settlements/commutations.
- Represented private equity fund in connection with RICO/fraud claim against reinsurer which provided 100 percent reinsurance of run-off liabilities.
- Represented reinsurer in a dispute under a worker's compensation carve-out reinsurance contract involving September 11th rescue, recovery, and clean-up claims; specifically, issues concerning aggregation of claims under "event" language, application of "occupational disease" exclusion, and the inclusion of actuarial projections of potential future exposure under "sunset" and "commutation" clauses.
- Represented U.S. life reinsurer in connection with dispute concerning variable annuities.
- Represent risk retention group in arbitration concerning sexual molestation claims.
- Represent insurer in federal court litigation seeking inter alia rescission arising from alleged misrepresentations and non-disclosures in connection with bar/tavern hospitality program.
- Represented life settlement provider in connection with dispute concerning "pay first" provision in contingency insurance policy.
In 2019, Mike was recognized by Who's Who Legal for his work in insurance & reinsurance.