Randall & Quilter Investment Holdings plc has acquired the Guernsey-based captive insurer of failed UK retailer Woolworths. Run-off services provider Randall & Quilter has acquired Woolworths Insurance (Guernsey) Limited, the captive insurance company of Woolworths Group plc, from Deloitte, which is acting as Woolworths administrators. The captive has net assets of around £1.2m and insurance reserves of £7.5m. As part of the acquisition of the Woolworths captive, Paul Corver, a director of Randall & Quilter’s wholly owned subsidiary KMS and chairman of the Association of Run-Off Companies, has been appointed managing director of the captive management services division of Randall & Quilter. The acquisition follows the run-off company’s acquisition at the end of 2008 of the Quest Group of Companies, which manages captives in Bermuda. “Captive owners need to carefully consider whether it is the best use of capital to carry assets in a legacy captive operation, especially when capital is tight,” said Mr Corver.

US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff has ruled that a jury should hear the conflicting claims in litigation between New York-based AIG and Starr International Co (SICO), controlled by Maurice “Hank” Greenberg. The trial will go ahead on June 15 in a Manhattan Federal Court. In a written decision, Judge Rakoff wrote that “all of the claims will initially be tried to a jury, but the jury will effectively be rendering only an advisory verdict as to certain of the claims”. AIG had asked a judge to block evidence that counterparty Starr International Co (SICO) wants to raise in the trial. AIG said in its most recently filed papers that SICO had updated its list of evidence to include the 2008 and 2009 bonuses paid to AIG executives and staff. AIG legal representative Eric Stone said that SICO’s move was “a textbook case of what the Federal Rules forbid, introducing an extraneous but highly prejudicial matter to induce a verdict ‘on a purely emotional basis”. SICO in turn filed six motions on June 1 seeking to exclude certain evidence, including the testimonies of three AIG witnesses who would be expected to say what Mr Greenberg had told them about AIG stock and SICO. SICO also wants to exclude tapes of two speeches he gave to AIG executives in 1996 and 2000, plus other talks, on the grounds that they were inadmissible hearsay. SICO further wants to exclude interviews recorded by researchers writing a book commissioned by AIG. SICO has sued AIG for the return of computers, business records and a $15m art collection. AIG has countersued for $4.3bn that it claims SICO collected after selling AIG stock.

A lawyer for Aleksander Janda, a Polish construction worker arrested in Queens, New York, has claimed that AIG had a hand in the arrest in order to avoid having to pay a $2.7m workers’ injury claim. Mr Janda was charged with using someone else’s Social Security number. In February Mr Janda was awarded $2.7m after falling 12 feet onto a cement floor. In a letter last month from Mr Janda’s lawyer Brett Nomberg to the judge in that case, Mr Nomberg claimed that AIG contacted the Queen’s District Attorney and the US Department of Homeland Security in an effort to have Mr Janda arrested and then deported. After the February verdict the defendant asked for a new trial. If Mr Janda were deported, he would not be able to appear at that trial. Judge Berniece Siegal has not yet ruled on whether to set aside the jury verdict.

Bermudian reinsurers Max Capital Group and IPC Holdings have agreed to sweeten their proposed $912m merger with $2.50 per share in dividends payments for IPC shareholders, who are scheduled to vote on the merger on June 12. Under the proposed sweetened deal, IPC shareholders would be paid $1.50 a share on June 15 and another $1 a share after the merger closes. The companies announced the agreement in the face of the recently sweetened, but still hostile takeover, offer for IPC from Validus Holdings. IPC’s board recently reiterated its preference for the amalgamation with Max Capital.