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ABOUT THE SEMINAR

In February, the US Supreme Court announced its first marine insurance decision in almost seven decades: Great Lakes Insurance SE v Raiders Retreat Realty Co LLC. This new decision upends the settled understanding of the Court’s last marine insurance decision, Wilburn Boat Co v Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co, which has governed choice-of-law questions in marine insurance since 1955. The lower courts interpreted Wilburn Boat to mean that the law of one of the fifty states (rather than federal maritime law) governed almost every marine insurance issue that was litigated in US courts. The Supreme Court’s new decision in Raiders Retreat calls those lower court decisions into question and suggests that an insurer with sufficient bargaining power can use a boilerplate clause in the policy to choose whatever governing law it prefers. This seminar will discuss that new decision in context and consider the options that are now available to the parties in a contract for marine insurance.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Professor Sturley teaches maritime law and co-directs the Supreme Court Clinic at the University of Texas Law School. Prior to joining the Texas faculty in 1984, he clerked for US Supreme Court Justice Lewis F Powell, Jr, and then practised with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City. In 2017, he was a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Maritime Law (CML). He is a co-author of Voyage Charters (5th edn, Informa 2022), The Rotterdam Rules (2nd edn, Sweet & Maxwell 2020), and Admiralty and Maritime Law in the United States (4th edn, Carolina Academic Press 2020); and author or co-author of numerous articles on maritime law.