BOC Aviation, a Dublin-based aircraft lessor, has begun legal action against 16 insurance companies, including Lloyd’s of London, Chubb European Group, AIG Europe and Swiss Re, over losses linked to Russia-Ukraine war, according to a Reuters report.
The proceedings were issued in the High Court on November 3, 2022.
In August, the subsidiary of Singapore-based BOC, the largest aircraft leasing company in Asia, recognised an $804 million asset write-down relating to the 17 aircraft it owns that remain in Russia since the war began.
The company said then that it was unlikely to be able to recover the jets “in the foreseeable future, if ever” and that it had filed insurance claims to recover losses and would vigorously pursue them.
A spokesman for BOC Aviation declined to comment further on the court filing, saying: “We have nothing to add to that information already in the public domain.”
According to Reuters, Lloyd’s and Swiss Re have declined to comment and AIG and Chubb did not immediately respond to requests for comment on BOC’s legal move.
BOC Aviation has become the latest plane lessor to take legal action over aircraft lost in Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. It joins Dublin-based AerCap and Avolon, the world’s two largest aircraft lessors.
AerCap filed in June a $3.5 billion lawsuit at London’s High Court over its insurance claim for more than 100 seized planes, the largest claim by any lessor related to the conflict.
It’s thought that, to date, more than 400 foreign-leased planes worth $10 billion still remain in Russia after the country moved to nationalise vehicles left in its territory, in response to Western sanctions.
