Travel

Particular areas of IE specialism:

  • Group illness and hygiene issues
  • Local standards expert evidence
  • Causation and damages assessment concerning high value long term symptoms and illnesses such as haemolytic kidney injury, post-infective IBS and neurological damage, chronic fatigue and post-infective arthritis
  • Accidents at sea and cruise claims
  • Catastrophic injury and high value care/assistance claims
  • Rights under international travel conventions

Package Travel

Every year, more than 10 million UK citizens take holidays and trips abroad, of which many are regulated by the Package Travel, etc Regulations 1992. Under these regulations, tour operators, holiday and travel organisers are exposed to potential liability for illness and accident arising overseas. The new Package Travel Directive 2015/2302, expected to come into force by July 2018, is likely to mean many more types of booking, including internet ‘click through’ bookings, and ‘flight plus’ ‘linked travel arrangements’ and agency bookings, are brought under the umbrella of regulation. The expected regulatory changes are likely to make it more difficult for tour operators, organisers and retailers to defend travel related claims. The volume of litigated claims is therefore expected to rise and, because of their relative complexity, slow the progress of claims through the courts.

All-inclusive sickness claims

All-inclusive holiday and Cruise ship packages generate great numbers of travellers who are exposed to highly variable hygiene arrangements and a wide array of environmental pathogens. Recent clarification of the law in relation to the statutorily implied term of satisfactory quality has generated an increase in the number of illness claims, a significant proportion of which are either potential group actions or cases where there are substantial numbers of linked claims. These multi-claim situations are disproportionately costly and carry risks for both sides, especially in cases where there are extensive disclosure materials, complexities arising from exposure of holidaymakers to alternative sources of pathogens and viable medical causation arguments. IE evaluators have significant experience of group and linked claim litigation of this kind.

Bodily injury / trauma claims

The primary focus of bodily injury claims remains local standards, along with medical causation arguments. IE evaluators have experience of both the cases where there are detailed local regulatory standards and provisions as well as those where the local standard is only to be demonstrated by reference to the practice of similar sized hotels and institutions.

Bespoke solutions for sickness and trauma claims

Investigation and litigation of foreign aspects of claims is expensive and time-consuming for both sides. IE is able to use bespoke approaches to group actions and linked claims, which are procedurally more flexible and much more rapid than litigated claims managed through the courts. IE has repeatedly demonstrated that both sides in disputes can achieve better outcomes than they would via litigation.

The changed ambit of the Directive will enhance the importance of contractual contribution from overseas hoteliers and suppliers. Recovery actions by tour operators against their overseas suppliers are often contentious, because protracted litigation in the UK generates massive costs: UK legal costs can appear particularly disproportionate to damages awarded in individual cases and tend to be poorly understood by foreign insurers and organisations. The prolonged delays associated with litigation mean that once resolution is finally achieved, any subsequent recovery actions against suppliers are usually rendered unviable, especially in multi-party actions. The far quicker process of IE greatly increases the chances of successful recovery.

Direct Actions against Insurers

The many motorists travelling on EU roads benefit from direct rights of action against insurers as a result of the 4th and 5th Motor Insurance Directives. This generates a large number of disputes concerning, in addition to typical road traffic accident claim issues, the choice of applicable law, policy validity/indemnity questions and identification of recoverable foreign heads of loss.

At IE we have the experience to evaluate both the classical package travel causation and local standards issues, along with complex cross border RTA claims which generate intricate mixes of jurisdiction, contract and applicable law especially peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of law affecting foreign heads of loss which are recoverable in some jurisdictions.