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Vasil Kisil Succesful for UNIQA Insurance Company in Agricultural Insurance Dispute

Vasil Kisil Succesful for UNIQA Insurance Company in Agricultural Insurance Dispute

Ukraine
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Vasil Kisil & Partners has successfully represented the UNIQA Insurance Company in a dispute over payment of an insurance indemnity in connection with a low crop yield caused by drought.

Following litigation that lasted over three and a half years, the court dismissed the insured’s claims for recovery of the insurance indemnity on the grounds that it had failed to fulfill a number of agro-technical requirements for growing barley, which had caused reduction in crop productivity and resulted in the lower crop yield than expected. The Superior Commercial Court of Ukraine upheld the resolution of the court of appeals.

"Agricultural insurance disputes are difficult to handle because it is difficult to prove the causes of crop loss (or low crop yield) as this may be the result of both adverse weather conditions and failure to follow an agricultural crop growing process," said Oleg Kachmar, Counsel at Vasil Kisil & Partners. "It is also not so easy to establish the time when the insured event occurred. This is mainly because, based on the agricultural insurance practices, the time of occurrence of an insured event does not coincide with the time when the insured event is discovered. Losses incurred by an agricultural producer as a result of the crop loss or low crop yield can usually be identified only when harvesting the crop. However, an insured event occurs at the moment when losses are incurred rather than identified."

The Vasil Kisil & Partners team included Managing Partner Andriy Stelmashcuk, Counsel Oleg Kachmar, and Associate Yuriy Kolos.