Michael has represented company and intermediary clients across the life, health, and property/casualty markets in disputes regarding policy and contract interpretation, yearly renewable term reinsurance premiums, notice, aggregation of losses, underwriting practices and claims management, life settlements, reinsurance allocations, follow the fortunes and follow the settlements, rescission, fraud, misrepresentation, and sunset and commutation clauses. He has litigated and arbitrated in state and federal courts as well as in a variety of U.S. and foreign arbitral settings.

Michael also has significant experience representing domestic and offshore captive insurance companies and captive managers, providing counseling on reinsurance and fronting arrangements, policy drafting, claims management, regulatory issues, and commutation agreements.

Prior to practicing law, Michael was a consultant on energy and environmental issues.

• Achieved a significant victory for a reinsurer in an arbitration concerning its contractual right to increase nonguaranteed reinsurance premiums and secured a final award worth upwards of $115 million.
• Represented a reinsurer in a dispute with its cedent over a facultatively reinsured life insurance policy containing material misrepresentations that the insurer’s agent was aware of at the time of underwriting but that were never disclosed to the reinsurer. Achieved a victory for our client, with the cedent repaying 100 percent of the amount in dispute, plus interest.
• Secured on appeal the reversal of summary judgment against a primary insurer in a suit by an excess insurer revolving around application of the antisubrogation rule and the primary carrier’s claims handling process.
• Represented several reinsurers in arbitrations over premium rate increases on various blocks of yearly renewable term life reinsurance treaties.
• Defended a Bermuda excess insurer in a London arbitration involving complex insurance coverage claims relating to significant environmental losses.
• Represented a cedent arbitrating against a reinsurer that sought rescission of dozens of reinsurance contracts and the return of millions of dollars in loss payments, obtaining 100 percent relief, including the attorneys’ fees incurred by the client.
• Represented a global reinsurer in a dispute involving the acquisition of a large block of North American life insurance business through a coinsurance agreement that contained unsatisfied conditions to closing. The dispute centered on the interpretation of those conditions to closing and the impact of temporary impossibility of performance on the parties’ rights and obligations under the coinsurance agreement.
• Represented a London-based reinsurance broker in a dispute involving allegations of errors in the placement of a reinsurance program for international energy risks.

• Rising Star, Insurance and Reinsurance, Expert Guides, 2015-2018